It is of great significance for the early diagnosis of cancer to detect the tumor biomarkers in human blood. However, it is still challenging to develop easily available and cost-effective methods to detect the ultralow-level tumor biomarkers. In this work, an innovative signal amplification strategy was developed for the ultrasensitive detection of tumor biomarkers. Amphiphilic peptides with high self-assembly performance can self-assemble into regulable nanofibers and enrich fluorophore to amplify the signal, which can improve the sensitivity of detection. Meanwhile, the design of MOFs with higher fluorescence quenching efficiency and luminescence characteristics can realize double-signal output and further improve the accuracy and sensitivity of detection. Taking alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) as a model tumor biomarker, this strategy achieved a wide linear range of 1–40 ng/mL detection, reducing the limit of detection (LOD) from 9.02 ng/mL to 0.28 ng/mL compared with no signal amplification strategy. Significantly, the results of clinical samples detected by this strategy was consistent with chemiluminescence immunoassay used in clinical practice. Our work provides a brand-new idea for signal amplification strategy and shows an important application prospect in the early diagnosis of various diseases.

检测人体血液中的肿瘤生物标志物对于癌症的早期诊断具有重要意义。然而，开发易于获得且具有成本效益的方法来检测超低水平肿瘤生物标志物仍然具有挑战性。在这项工作中，开发了一种创新的信号放大策略，用于肿瘤生物标志物的超灵敏检测。具有高自组装性能的两亲性肽可以自组装成可调节的纳米纤维并富集荧光团以放大信号，从而提高检测的灵敏度。同时，设计具有更高荧光猝灭效率和发光特性的MOF，可以实现双信号输出，进一步提高检测的准确性和灵敏度。以甲胎蛋白（AFP）为模型肿瘤生物标志物，与无信号放大策略相比，该策略实现了 1-40 ng/mL 检测的宽线性范围，将检测限 (LOD) 从 9.02 ng/mL 降低到 0.28 ng/mL。值得注意的是，该策略检测的临床样本结果与临床实践中使用的化学发光免疫分析结果一致。我们的工作为信号放大策略提供了一种全新的思路，在多种疾病的早期诊断中显示出重要的应用前景。