Phage-Displayed Nanobody as a Sensitive Nanoprobe to Enhance Chemiluminescent Immunoassay for Cronobacter sakazakii Detection in Dairy Products

The exploitation of stable, high-affinity, and low-cost nanoprobes is essential to develop immunoassays for real-time monitoring of foodborne pathogens, so as to safeguard human health. The possible interaction of the Fc fragment of antibodies with spA protein on Staphylococcus aureus will result in unexpected interference. To address this consideration, we described herein for the first time the development of nanobodies that by definition are devoid of the Fc fraction. These nanobodies directed against Cronobacter sakazakii (C. sakazakii) were retrieved from a dedicated immune phage-displayed nanobody library. The binders showed superiority of low cost, strong stability, high binding affinity, and adequate load capacity. Thereafter, a phage-mediated sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was constructed by using Cs-Nb2 as an antigen-capturing antibody and phage-displayed Cs-Nb1 as a detection probe. To further enhance the sensitivity, a chemiluminescent enzyme immunoassay (CISA) was established by replacing the substrate from 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) to luminol, providing a limit of detection of 1.04 × 104 CFU/mL, with a recovery of 98.15–114.63% for the detection of C. sakazakii in dairy products. The proposed nanobody-based phage-mediated sandwich CLISA shows various advantages, including high sensitivity, cost effectiveness, enhanced loading capacity of the enzyme, and high resistance to the matrix effect, providing a strategy for the design of immunoassays toward foodborne pathogens.