We report the development of ah ighly sensitive ratiometric fluorescent lateral flowi mmunoassay( RFLFIA) strip for rapid and accurate detection of acute myocardial infarction biomarker,n amely heart-type fatty acid binding protein (H-FABP). The RFLFIA strip works in terms of ratiometric change of fluorescence signal, arising from blending of fluorescence emitted by two composite nanostructures conjugated to capture and probe antibodies and inner filter effect of gold nanoparticles.Inconjunction with using custom smartphone-based analytical device and tonality analysis, quantitative detection of H-FABP was achieved with al ow limit of detection at 0.21 ng mL À1 .T he RFLFIA strip can generate av isually distinguishable green-to-red color change around the threshold concentration of H-FABP (6.2 ng mL À1 ), thus allowing the semi-quantitative diagnosis by the naked eye.

The single-phase oxides with elemental complexity and compositional diversity, usually named high entropy oxides, feature homogeneously dispersed multi-metallic elements in equiatomic concentration. The unusual properties of high entropy oxides endow their potential application in clean-energy-related electrocatalysis. However, the possible fundamental relationship between configuration entropy and the underlying catalytic mechanism is still not well understood and established. Herein, a high entropy perovskite cobaltate consisting of five equimolar metals in the B-site (Mg, Mn, Fe, Co, and Ni) is employed as an electrocatalyst for oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The configuration entropy serves as an effective tool to promote the intrinsic activity of the Co reactive site and manipulate the OER mechanism. The high entropy cobaltate demonstrates a lower overpotential of 320 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm −2 , outperforming other counterparts. The X-ray spectroscopies disclose the synergistic charge-exchange effect among different cations and the formation of a new oxygen hole state. Combinatorially computational and experimental results unveil the enigma that the high configuration entropy leads to the random occupation of cations, facilitates the surface reconstruction, and benefits the formation of stable surface oxygen vacancies. Owing to these merits, the O 2 formation is found to be kinetically favorable via the lattice oxygen mechanism.

Exploring signal amplification strategies to enhance the sensitivity of lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) is of great significance for point-of-care (POC) testing of low-concentrated targets in the field of in vitro diagnostics. Here, a highly-sensitive LFIA platform using compact and hierarchical magnetofluorescent assemblies as both target-enrichment substrates and optical sensing labels is demonstrated. The large-pored dendritic templates are utilized for high-density incorporation of both superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (IOs) and quantum dots (QDs) within the vertical channels. The hierarchical structure is built via affinity-driven assembly of IOs and QDs from organic phase with silica surface and mercapto-organosilica intermediate layer, respectively. The sequential assembly with central-radial channels enables 3D loading of dual components and separately controlling of discrete functionalities. After the alkyl-organosilica encapsulation and silica sealing, the composite spheres exhibit high stabilities and compatibility with LFIA for procalcitonin (PCT) detection. With the assistance of liquid-phase antigen-capturing, magnetic enrichment, and fluorescence-signal amplification, a limit of detection of 0.031 ng mL −1 for PCT is achieved with a linear range from 0.012 to 10 ng mL −1 . The current LFIA is robust and validated for PCT detection in real serum, which holds great diagnostic significance for precise guidance of antibiotic therapy with POC manner.

Lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA), as a prominent point-of-care (POC) test platform, has been extensively adopted for rapid, on-site, and facile diagnosis of pathogen infections and disease biomarkers. Exploring novel structured optical labels of LFIA with amplified signal and complementary detection modes favors the sensitive and flexible POC diagnosis. Here, bimodal labels with both colorimetric and fluorescent readout were fabricated via a layered sequential assembly strategy based on affinity templates and hydrophobic metal-containing nanounits. High-quality colorimetric and fluorescent nanoparticles were densely incorporated into the colloidal supports and confined in separated regions, without interfering with each other. The hierarchical integration of gold nanoparticles and quantum dots with high loading density and good optical preservation realized dual readout and amplified signals from the assemblies of individual single nanoparticles. The "all-in-one" optical labels allowed both colorimetric and fluorescent detection of cystatin C (Cys C) after surface conjugation with antibodies. The LFIA strips revealed noninterfering dual signals for both visual inspection and quantitative detection of Cys C via the naked eye and portable devices, respectively. The limits of detection by colorimetric and fluorescent modes were 0.61 and 0.24 ng mL −1 , respectively. The novel LFIA platform demonstrated sensitive, specific, and reproducible POC testing of biomarkers with flexible detection modes and was reliable for clinical diagnosis.

In this work, we have fabricated a new dual-emission quantum dot (QD) nanohybrid for fluorescence ratiometric determination of cadmium ions (Cd) in water samples, where the "turn-on" model and "ion-imprinting" technique were incorporated simultaneously. The nanohybrid probe was composed of green-emitting CdSe QDs covalently linked onto the surface of silica nanoparticles embedded with red-emitting CdTe QDs. The chemical etching of ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) at the surface produced specific Cd recognition sites and quenched the green fluorescence of outer CdSe QDs. Upon exposure to different amounts of Cd, the green fluorescence was gradually restored, whereas the inner red fluorescence remained constant. As a consequence, an obviously distinguishable fluorescence color variation (from red to green) of the probe solution was observed. Under the optimized conditions, the developed ratiometric sensor displayed a linear response range from 0.1 to 9 μM with a detection limit of 25 nM (S/N = 3) for Cd, which could offer an alternative sensing approach for the highly sensitive and selective detection of heavy metal ions.