Enrofloxacin (ENR), as the third-generation antibiotics, can inhibit bacterial DNA deconjugase and topoisomerase IV by binding to the cycloheximide subunit, blocking the replication and transcription process of bacterial DNA to realize bacteriostatic and bacteriophageal effects (Grabowski, et al. 2022; Xi 2022) ENR has been widely used in the fields of aquaculture (Huang, et al. 2019 )and animal husbandry (Li, et al. 2019; Du and Liu 2021). However, the excessive use of ENR has result in bacterial resistance and symptoms such as immune system damage, physiological abnormalities, and intestinal flora dysbiosis in aquatic animals (Wei, et al. 2023). In addition, the enrichment effect in organisms affects human health and environmental ecology (Bao, et al. 2024; Liu, et al. 2024). Therefore, the use of ENR and maximum residue limits (MRLs) in different animal products were strictly regulated (Zhang, et al. 2020). Therefore, the rapid and precise analytical method is urgent need to be developed for monitoring ENR to ensure the sustainable development of the farming industry, ecological balance and human food safety.
Various methods have been reported for analyzing ENR residues including high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) (Aslam, et al. 2016), electrochemical methods (Guo, et al. 2024; Huang, et al. 2022), immunochromatographic analyses (ICAs) (Hu, et al. 2023), enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (El Tahir, et al. 2021; Zhang, et al. 2011), and colorimetric methods (Wang, et al. 2023; Zhu, et al. 2022). These methods are highly sensitive, but the high cost of equipment, complexity of operation and long detection time increase the difficulty of detection (Shen, et al. 2019). Therefore, it is particularly important to develop a faster and simple method for quantitative detection of ENR.
The aptamer, as a single-stranded DNA or RNA, can be rapidly screened and synthesized by in vitro screening SELEEX (Syste matic Evolution of Ligand Exponential Enrichment) technique to be prepared in the laboratory (Hou, et al. 2023; Zhang, et al. 2024; Teng, et al. 2018). The aptamers can form the specific secondary structures (e.g., stem-loop structures, three-way junctions, etc.) and tertiary folds (e.g., G -tetramers), which make the aptamers can bind to a variety of target molecules with non-covalent interaction, such as protein, nucleic acid, small-molecule drugs, and so on (Guo, et al. [2021]; Lv, et al. [2022]; Li, et al. [2020]; Shang, et al. [2023]; Zhang, et al. [2023]). Therefore, the aptamers have been widely used in biosensor detection, target recognition and delivery (Wan, et al. [2023]). SYBR Green I (SG-I), as a fluorescence dye frequently utilized for the identification of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA), is able to embed itself to the base pairs of double-stranded DNA to significantly emit fluorescence (Kaczmarek, et al. [2021]; Chen, et al. [2022]; Wang, et al [2024]). Based on above feature, SG-I is widely used in electrophoresis, real-time PCR, and other forms of DNA qualitative and quantitative analysis (Xia, et al. [2021]). Aptamer with G-quadruplex structure can be identified and inserted by SG-I to turn on fluorescence (Zhang, et al. [2024]; Yi, et al. [2019]). Therefore, we envisioned that designed an aptamer-based label-free fluorescence with SG-I for detection of ENR.
In this work, we established a rapid detection method for ENR based on aptamer with G-quadruplex structure and SG-I. As shown in Scheme 1, in the absence of ENR, the ENR aptamer with G-quadruplex structure can be recognized and inserted SG-I with forming fluorescence. After the addition of ENR, the high affinity ability made the prioritized combination ENR and the aptamer to cause release of SG-I, which led to decrease of fluorescence signal. Therefore, the ENR was quantitatively analyzed based on change of SG-I fluorescent signal. The results showed the aptamer sensor was capable of detecting ENR with concentration from0 to 600 nM (R2 = 0.996). The limit of detection was 0.158 nM. In addition, this method can be used for detecting ENR on fish, chicken and pork samples with the relative standard deviations (RSD) below 6% and the average recoveries of these samples ranged from 99.74–104.02%. Therefore, this strategy provided a convenient assay for detecting ENR.