Time-resolved digital immunoassay for rapid and sensitive quantitation of procalcitonin with plasmonic imaging

Timely diagnosis of acute diseases improves treatment outcomes and saves lives, but it requires fast and precision quantification of biomarkers. Here we report a time-resolved digital immunoassay based on plasmonic imaging of binding of single nanoparticles to biomarkers captured on a sensor surface. The real-time and high contrast of plasmonic imaging lead to fast and precise counting of the individual biomarkers over a wide dynamic range. We demonstrated the detection principle, evaluated the performance of the method using procalcitonin (PCT) as an example, and achieved a limit of detection of ~ 3 pg/mL, dynamic range of 4-12500 pg/mL, for a total detection time of ~ 25 mins.