Biosensors and Bioelectronics 30 (2011) 310–314 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Biosensors and Bioelectronics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/bios Short communication A versatile and highly sensitive probe for Hg(II), Pb(II) and Cd(II) detection individually and totally in water samples Yu Zhou a,∗ , Xiang-Li Tian b , Yan-Song Li c , Yuan-Yuan Zhang a , Li Yang a , Jun-Hui Zhang a , Xin-Rui Wang a , Shi-Ying Lu a , Hong-Lin Ren a , Zeng-Shan Liu a a Key Laboratory of Zoonosis Research, Ministry of Education, Institute of Zoonosis, Jilin University, Changchun 130062, PR China b Key Laboratory of Mariculture, Ministry of Education, Fisheries College, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266003, PR China c Laboratory of Nutrition and Safety Food, College of Light Industry and Management Technology, Jilin University, Changchun 130062, PR China article info Article history: Received 9 June 2011 Received in revised form 15 August 2011 Accepted 16 August 2011 Available online 22 September 2011 Keywords: Multi-component probe Heavy metal Detection abstract The detection of heavy metal ions using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) has been reported by several research groups. However, highly sensitive and selective detection of total heavy metal ions using ELISA is a major technical limitation. Here we describe the development of a versatile and highly sensitive probe combining goat anti-mice IgG, colloidal gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and horseradish per- oxidase (HRP). We demonstrate the utility of this probe using three kinds of heavy metal complete antigens and three monoclonal antibodies (McAbs) in one ELISA system to establish a high-throughput screening protocol. The procedure was successfully applied to analysis of Hg(II), Pb(II) and Cd(II) individ- ually and totally from different water samples. The sensitivities for the detection of Hg(II), Pb(II) and Cd(II) individually and totally are 27.4, 3.9, 15.8 and 18.2 nM, respectively. And all limit of detection (LODs) are lower than 1.2 nM. The recovery results obtained from the developed technique showed a good corre- lation (R 2 = 0.983) with those from ICP-MS. The major advantage of the probe is the versatility and high sensibility. The probe could be potentially used, upon demand, as a sensitive and versatile detector for a broad range of applications. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Heavy metals are persistent environmental toxins. They are not biodegradable and have the potential for accumulation in different body organs (Jarup, 2003). Heavy metals are also implicated in caus- ing carcinogenesis, mutagenesis, and teratogenesis (Blake et al., 2001). The pollution of heavy metals is a serious environmental problem. The maximum contaminant levels of mercury, cadmium and lead in drinking water allowed by United States Environmental protection Agency (EPA) are 0.002, 0.005 and 0.015 mg L -1 , respec- tively (US EPA, 2009). Thus, there is a growing need for simple and sensitive methods for screening of total amount of heavy metal ions, such as mercury, cadmium and lead. Conventional techniques for the determination of heavy metals include mass spectrometry (MS) (Tormen et al., 2011), fluorescence spectrometry (FS) (Carvalho et al., 2005), and atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) (Ahmadi et al., 2010). However, these tech- niques rely on sophisticated instruments and skilled personnel. These inherent limitations restricted their practical applica- tions. Other techniques such as fluorescence chemosensor based ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 0431 87836712; fax: +86 0136 34318992. E-mail address: zhouyu69@sina.com (Y. Zhou). detection (Wang et al., 2010), colorimetric chemo-sensor based detection (Chen et al., 2009), carbon ionic liquid electrode detec- tion (CILE) (Li et al., 2009), microchip-electrochemistry detection (Chailapakul et al., 2008), potentiometric stripping analysis (PSA) (Tarley et al., 2009), laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (Senesi et al., 2009) and screen-printed carbon nanotubes electrodes assay (Injang et al., 2010) are mostly laboratory bound. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), as a popular immunoassay offers significant advantages over these traditional instrument-intensive methods. It is easily performed and highly sensitive, dose not rely on sophisticated instruments and has less sample clean-up procedures compared to conventional MS, FS and AAS. Some ELISAs have been applied successfully to the detection of Hg (Marx and Hock, 2000; Wylie et al., 1991; Lou et al., 2009), Cd (Darwish and Blake, 2001; Zhu et al., 2007a; Liu et al., 2009) and Pb(II) (Zhu et al., 2007b; Xiang et al., 2010). However, each technique is based on specific monoclonal antibody (McAb) for the detection of single metal ion per assay. It would be more effi- cient to develop a technique which can be utilized to determine multi-target per well in one assay in stead of one reaction for each individual analyte. In this study, we synthesized a versatile and highly sensitive probe for the detection of Hg(II), Pb(II) and Cd(II) individually and totally in water samples. The design of the novel probe and the 0956-5663/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.bios.2011.08.034