Study of quantum dots conjugation with antibodies to be used in a lateral flow immunochromatographic assay

Lateral-flow immunochromatographic assays (LFIA) is one of the most common low-cost, simple-to-use and rapid methods for point-of-care determining various types of bacterial, viral and autoimmune diseases. The selectivity and sensitivity of the analysis is determined by the complementarity interactions of protein molecules and attaching an analytical label to the protein. Recently, quantum dots (QDs) have been considered the most promising protein labels. In this study, oriented conjugation of QDs with antibodies (Abs) to glycoprotein B (gB) of the Aujeszky’s disease was conducted by the carbodiimide-succinimide method. There has been proposed a polymer coating of QDs suitable for site-specific conjugation based on the vinylpyrrolidone-maleic anhydride-ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (VP-MANEGDMA) copolymer. Using a portable fluorescent reader the minimum detection limits of the considered immunochromatographic test-systems with QDs as Abs labels were determined.