Establishment of highly sensitive lateral flow immunochromatographic strips for quinclorac detection utilizing signal amplification nanoparticles

Highly selective herbicide quinclorac (Qui) is a type of quinoline carboxylic acid hormone herbicide, which has the characteristics of long half-life and difficulty for degradation, causing high risk to the environmental safety. In this study, anti-Qui 8A3 monoclonal antibody (mAb) with good specificity and high affinity (3.89 × 109 L/mol) was prepared, and two kinds of lateral flow immunochromatographic strips (LFICS) including nano-flower nanoparticles (AuNF) - and latex microsphere (LM)- based LFICS were established based on the antibody and signal amplification. The linear range of the AuNF- and LM- based LFICS were 5.31–345.48 ng/mL and 2.52–257.92 ng/mL, respectively. The limit of detection (LOD) of the AuNF- and LM- based LFICS were determined to be 5.31 ng/mL and 2.52 ng/mL, respectively. In summary, the developed LFICS using AuNF and LM as signal amplification reporters exhibited excellent sensitivity and provided the rapid on-site screening of Qui and other analytes in food safety field. •Anti-Qui mAb with high affinity (3.89 × 109 L/mol) was obtained.•Multi-branched nano-flower nanoparticles (AuNF) was explored as signal amplification.•Latex microsphere (LM) with high optical extinction was employed as signal reporter.•Sensitivity of immunochromatography was enhanced utilizing AuNF and LM nanoparticles.