Introduction

The quantification of diagnostic markers, or biomarkers, has an enormous impact in the early diagnosis, from basic research to clinical applications. In this context, electrochemiluminescence (ECL) appears to be a leading transduction technique for the detection of very low amounts of these molecules.

The present invention deals with a new family of Dye Doped Silica Nanoparticles (DDSNPs), showing distinctive improvements in terms of stability of the electrochemiluminescence analytical signal, with respect to available electroluminescent markers.

Technical features

ECL boasts also excellent spatial and temporal control with the possibility of performing rapid measurements on small sample volumes. Chasing an ever-increasing sensitivity, many researchers tried to combine ECL with nanomaterials, such as nanoparticles, using them as dyes or co-reactants. In particular, dye-doped silica nanoparticles (DDSNPs) have proved to be a very interesting option as ECL dyes, since they can offer several advantages in terms of sensitivity and performance.

The present invention deals with a new family of Dye Doped Silica Nanoparticles (DDSNPs), showing distinctive improvements when involved in electrochemiluminescent-based analysis. The synthetic approach herein adopted allows a high dye doping degree (ca 4800 complexes every nanoparticle), with limited variations of the nanoparticle surface charge, thus allowing a high ECL emission. Moreover, the silica matrix is able to increase the time stability of the ECL signal, increasing even more the performance of these nanoparticles.

Possible Applications

• Immunoassay-based detection systems.

Advantages

• Enhancement of signal intensity;
• Simple and versatile synthetic schemes for the preparation;
• Enhancement of stability.