Aptamer induced multi-colored AuNCs-WS2 “Turn on” FRET Nano platform for dual-color simultaneous detection of aflatoxin B1 and zearalenone

Mycotoxins posit serious threats to human and animal health, and numerous efforts have been performed to detect the multiple toxins by a single diagnostic approach. For the first time, we synthesized a novel aptamer induced “turn on” fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) biosensor using dual color gold nanoclusters (AuNCs), L-proline and BSA synthesized AuNCs (Lp-AuNCs and BSA-AuNCs), with WS2 nanosheet for simultaneous recognition of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1 and zearalenone (ZEN) by single excitation. Here, AFB1 aptamer stabilized blue-emitting AuNCs (AFB1-apt-Lp-AuNCs) (at 442 nm) and ZEN aptamer functionalized with red colored AuNCs (ZEN-apt-BSA-AuNCs) (at 650 nm) were employed as an energy donor and WS2 nanosheet as a fluorescence quencher. With the addition of AFB1 and ZEN, the change in fluorescence intensity (F.I) was recorded at 442 nm and 650 nm and can be used for simultaneous recognition with a detection limit of 0.34 pg mL-1 (R2= 0.9931) and 0.53 pg mL-1 (R2= 0.9934), respectively. Most impo...