The kiwi plant is dioecious, and its sex is generally identified from flower morphology at blossoming, which takes several years. It is quite necessary but challenging to on-spot identify the plant sex in juvenile stage. Here the target DNA was obtained by screening the Friendly boy (FrBy) gene which is sex-related for different kiwi plant species. Its complementary sequence was divided into two parts as primer DNA and further attached to different gold nanoparticles (GNPs). The connection between target DNA and primer DNA will promote the formation of plasmonic dimers. Dark field microscopy (DFM) can distinguish particles in different aggregation states. Various conditions were optimized based on the standard of increasing the proportion of dimers while reducing that of large aggregates. Furthermore, two Raman reporters (RR) are separately labeled on the nanoprobes, and the plasmonic dimers lead to a tremendous Raman enhancement of two reporters located at the dimer nanogap. Double-blind tests proved the feasibility of this method on the actual samples of kiwi plant leaves. Our SERS method is sensitive, specific, and reliable for rapid sex identification analysis at the kiwi seeding stage, with great promise for decision-making in field management.

Herein, a facile and sensitive dual mode sensing strategy for amantadine (AMD) level evaluation by coupling the plasmonic Au nanorod (NR) and supramolecular SH-cyclodextrin (CD) through strong Au-S bond is proposed. Methylene blue (MB) molecules can be inserted into the cavity of CD molecules through the hydrophobic interaction, which would cause the plasmon resonance energy transfer (PRET) process as well as electrochemical signal response due to the spectrum overlap between Au NR and MB molecules and the electrochemical conversion activity of MB molecules. Subsequently, AMD would induce the replacement of MB molecules because of the stronger interaction with CD, resulting the recovery of scattering intensity of Au NR and decrease of the electrooxidation current of MB. On one hand, the increase of Au NR scattering intensity is linearly proportional to AMD with the concentration from 0.4 to 3.0 μM, and reaches a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.28 μM. On the other hand, electrochemical measurement method enlarged the detection range of AMD. The variation of electrochemical oxidation peak current of MB is linearly proportional to the logarithm value of AMD concentration from 2.5 to 375.0 μM, with LOD of 1.9 μM. Subsequently, the proposed dual mode response sensing strategy was successfully employed for the detection of AMD in human serum samples with great selectivity and sensitivity, with a recovery percentage ranged from 92.6 to 112.0%. Overall, this Au NR@SH-CD-MB nanoparticle based single particle plasmonic and electrochemical dual mode sensing method provides great potential in the field of clinical drug detection or metabolic process investigation in the future.

A novel approach for ultrasensitive ochratoxin A (OTA) detection is reported based on dark field microscope-based single nanoparticle identification coupled with a statistical analysis method. OTA aptamers were firstly hybridized with a single-stranded DNA (DNA1) to form an identification probe (DNA1-Apt). The aptamers separate from DNA1 in the presence of OTA and are released from the identification probe. Then, another single-stranded DNA (DNA2) hybridizes with DNA1 and result in the aggregation of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). Therefore, the presence of AuNP aggregates is the evidence of the presence of OTA, while AuNP aggregates can be easily identified together with the monomers under dark field microscopic inspection. On the other hand, by counting the aggregation rate (the number of AuNP aggregates versus the number of AuNP monomers) with a statistical analysis method, OTA could be quantitatively detected. The detection range for OTA was 0.1 pg/mL ~ 30 ng/mL and the limit of detection was 0.1 pg/mL. The proposed sensor has comparative detection performance to sensors utilizing a number of signal amplification procedures, with the additional advantages of simplicity and high efficiency. The sensor can also be adopted for other target detection simply by replacing the identification probes. Graphical abstract The schematic of the AuNP aggregation for OTA detection. The OTA aptamers were competitively banded by OTA and induced form AuNP aggregation after adding DNA2 and AuNPs2. Subsequently, AuNPs were detected under dark field microscope and statistical analysis.

T4 polynucleotide kinase (T4 PNK) plays an essential role in DNA phosphorylation during the DNA repair process. Therefore, the sensitive, selective and convenient detection of T4 PNK activity is of great significance. In this work, we proposed a sensitive non-amplification strategy for the sensing of T4 PNK activity via dark field microscope (DFM) based on magnetic bead (MB)-gold nanoparticle (AuNP) hybrids probe, MB-dsDNA-AuNP (MDA). In the presence of T4 PNK, the 5\'-OH termini of DNA are phosphorylated and cleaved into oligonucleotides by lambda exonuclease (λexo), resulting in the destruction of the MDA probe and the separation of AuNP from the MB. Through automatic counting of AuNPs from DFM images, T4 PNK activity can be quantitatively measured. This strategy revealed a limit of detection (LOD) as low as 0.0058 U/mL and exhibited a dynamic range from 0.01 to 1 U/mL. The strategy presents an excellent ability to discriminate T4 PNK from the other proteins and enzymes. Notably, this strategy was applied to screen the T4 PNK inhibitors and test the activity in cell lysates, showing great potential for the discovery of new anticancer drugs and other related research field.

This paper reported a new method to observe the catalytic progress of the natural horseradish peroxidase (HRP) in-situ on single gold nanoparticles (GNPs) by the combination of dark field imaging and plasmonic resonance scattering spectra. The produced single HRP-GNP exhibited localized catalytic property toward H2O2-Diaminobenzidine (DAB), which could be used to detect the concentration of H2O2 in micro/nanospace. The linear range for H2O2 sensing was from 0.01 μM to 5 μM with a detection limit of 10 nM. The new design strategy could be applied for a broader bioanalysis situation by substituting the HRP with other specified biocatalyst.

A highly sensitive homogeneous method for DNA detection has been developed. The system relies on two kinds of gold nanorod (AuNR) probes with complementary DNA sequences to the target DNA. In the presence of the target DNA, two kinds of AuNR probes are assembling into dimers or small aggregates. The target-induced AuNR aggregate has higher scattering intensity than that of a single AuNR because of the plasmonic coupling effect. Dark field microscopy was utilized to image the single particle and measure its scattering intensity. We wrote our own Matlab code and used it to extract the scattering signal of all particles. Difference in distribution of scattering intensity between the single AuNR and its aggregate provides a quantitative basis for the detection of target DNA. A linear dynamic range spanning from 0.1pM to 1nM and a detection limit of ~ 30fM were achieved for the detection of DNA in serum sample.