Simple design of upconversion nanoparticles-based aptasensor integrated microfluidic chip for ultra-sensitive detection of bisphenol A in aquatic products

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an endocrine disrupting chemical having estrogenic properties that can enter the body through leaking from food containers or the food chain. An upconversion nanoparticle-based aptasensor integrated with microfluidic chip was simply designed to achieve the determination of BPA in foodstuff. Core-shell structured upconversion nanoparticles with 6.41-fold luminescence enhancement were used as fluorescence donors and gold nanoparticles as fluorescence acceptors to construct fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) system. The BPA aptamer serves as a link between the building of the FRET system and the BPA-specific recognition component. The fishbone-structured microfluidic chip only needs 0.5 μL sample solution and 4 min to determine the presence of BPA. The proposed method has good linearity for BPA in the range of 0.02–100 ng/mL with calibration curve of y  = 0.0918 x  + 0.6477 and limit of detection of 0.014 ng/mL. It is tremendously competitive to perform on-chip analysis that enables microsampling and rapid determination.