Multifunctional manganese carbonate microspheres with superparamagnetic and fluorescent properties: synthesis and biological application.

Multifunctional manganese carbonate microspheres with superparamagnetic and fluorescent properties were fabricated and used as biological labels. The Fe(3)O(4)@MnCO(3) microspheres were synthesized by direct co-precipitation without any linker shell. The Fe(3)O(4)@MnCO(3) microspheres have uniform size distribution and rough surface, which provides a promising template for the assembly of polyelectrolytes (PEs) and CdTe quantum dots (QDs). A luminescent CdTe shell was observed in Fe(3)O(4)@MnCO(3)@PE-CdTe spheres by confocal fluorescence imaging. With excellent solubility in water and rough surfaces, the multifunctional microsphere offers a friendly microenvironment for immobilization of α-fetoprotein (AFP) antibodies (Ab(2)) to fabricate Fe(3)O(4)@MnCO(3)@PE-CdTe-Ab(2) architecture. By using the Fe(3)O(4) @MnCO(3)@PEs-CdTe-Ab(2) bioconjugate as a label, a promising and versatile platform for fluorescence imaging and electrochemical immunosensing of cancer biomarker AFP was developed. The prepared electrochemical immunosensor shows high sensitivity and selectivity with a detection limit of 0.3 pg mL(-1).