Metal-polydopamine framework based lateral flow assay for high sensitive detection of tetracycline in food samples

Abstract Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs)-based lateral flow assay (LFA) enables a rapid detection of tetracycline (TET) in food samples but suffers from low sensitivity. Herein, metal-polydopamine framework (MPF), as a label, was employed to load monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) directly as the probe in LFA for highly sensitive sensing of TET. Combining zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF-67) and polydopamine (PDA), a stable MPF with large size, well water-dispersible, excellent affinity and optical properties was prepared through a versatile layer-by-layer assembly (LLA) strategy. Under optimized conditions, the biosensor (MPF-LFA) exhibited a great linear relationship in the range of 0.09–6 ng/mL and a detection limit of 0.045 ng/mL for TET detection, which was over 66-fold more sensitive than traditional AuNPs based LFA. Furthermore, the MPF-LFA was successfully applied to the screening of TET in fish, chicken, milk and shrimp samples with satisfied recoveries from 91% to 114%.