Silanized Luminescent Quantum Dots for the Simultaneous Multicolor Lateral Flow Immunoassay of Two Mycotoxins.

: A critical point for the successful development of fluorescent quantum dot (QD) based immunoassay is maintaining of the high fluorescent quantum yield of QDs during hydrophilization and bioconjugation. In this paper, we carefully designed CdSe/CdS and CdSe/CdS/ZnS core-shell heterostructures and extended them with silica coating of different surface composition allowing to preserve fluorescent quantum yield as high as 70 % in aqueous media. The silanized QDs containing epoxy and carboxy surface groups were bioconjugated with monoclo-nal antibodies. The synthesized fluorescent conjugates were used in a multicolour lateral flow immunoassay for simultaneous determination of two mycotoxins. Zearalenone and deoxynivalenol were chosen as a proof-of-concept. Cut-off levels for the zearalenone and deoxyniva-lenol detection were adjusted to be at 40 and 400 μg kg-1, respectively, complying with European Commission regulation. Validation of the developed test was performed by analysis of 34 naturally-contaminated maize and wheat samples; as a confirmatory method LC-MS/MS was used.