Sulfonamide
antibiotics (SAs) are widely used in animal husbandry
and aquaculture, and the excess residues of SAs in animal-derived
foods will harm the health of consumers. In reality, various SAs were
alternately used in animal husbandry and aquaculture, and thus, it
is urgent need to develop simple and high-throughput methods for simultaneously
detecting multiple SAs or groups of SAs in order to realize rapid
screening of total SAs residues in animal-derived foods. We herein
isolated a broad-specificity aptamer for SAs by using a multi-SAs
systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX)
strategy. The isolated broad-specificity aptamer has a higher binding
affinity to five different SAs including sulfaquinoxaline (SQ), sulfamethoxypyridazine
(SMPZ), sulfametoxydiazine (SMD), sulfachloropyridazine (SCP), and
sulfapyridine (SPD) and, thus, can be used as a bioreceptor for developing
various high-throughput methods for the simultaneous detection or
rapid screening of above five SAs. Based on the isolated broad-specificity
aptamer and Cy7 (diethylthiatricarbocyanine) displacement strategy,
a colorimetric aptasensor was developed for the simultaneous detection
of SQ, SMPZ, SMD, SCP, and SPD with a visual detection limit of 2.0–5.0
μM and a spectrometry detection limit of 0.2–0.5 μM.
The colorimetric aptasensor was successfully used to detect SQ, SMPZ,
SMD, SCP, and SPD in fish muscle with a recovery of 82%–92%
and a RSD (n = 5) < 7%. The success of this study
provided a promising bioreceptor for developing various high-throughput
methods for on-site rapid screening of multiple SAs residues, as well
as a simple method for the rapid and cost-effective screening of total
SQ, SMPZ, SMD, SCP, and SPD in seafood.