A highly sensitive differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetry for determination of 17β-estradiol (E2) using CdSe quantum dots based on indirect competitive immunoassay

Abstract In this study a new and fast procedure was developed to determine trace 17β-estradiol (E2) concentrations using CdSe quantum dots (QDs) conjugation with bovine serum albumin (BSA)-E2. To increase the high efficiency of the method, the immunoassay design was restricted to an indirect competitive format. The E2 antigen and bioconjugate were incubated in a microtiter plate with an anti-E2 antibody and competition for antibody binding sites was established. The in situ bismuth-coated carbon electrodes were used for detecting the cadmium ions (Cd 2+ ) released during the acid dissolution step. After optimization, the well-defined sharp anodic stripping voltammograms curves of the E2 concentration ranging from 50 to 1000 pg/mL was recorded, and the lowest detection limit was 50 pg/mL with 6% reproducibility and 7% repeatability. Finally, the assay was applied to tap water and wastewater samples. The detection limits were 52.56±0.125 pg/mL for tap water and 51.42±0.453 pg/mL for wastewater. These results show that the assay exhibited sensitive analytical performance in E2 detection with high sensitivity and accuracy with satisfactory results.