Xiao, Can, 1988-Mir-Simón, BernatRivera Gil, Pilar, 1976-2023-01-252023-01-252022Xiao C, Mir-Simón B, Rivera-Gil P. Controlled nano-agglomerates as stabile SERS reporters for unequivocal labelling. Sci Rep. 2022 May 28;12(1):8977. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-12989-62045-2322http://hdl.handle.net/10230/55432Biosensors, especially those with a SERS readout, are required for an early and precise healthcare diagnosis. Unreproducible SERS platforms hamper clinical SERS. Here we report a synthetic procedure to obtain stabile, reproducible and robust highly-SERS performing nanocomposites for labelling. We controlled the NPs agglomeration and codification which resulted in an increased number of hot spots, thus exhibiting reproducible and superior Raman enhancement. We studied fundamental aspects affecting the plasmonic thiol bond resulting in pH exhibiting a determining role. We validated their biosensing performance by designing a SERS-based detection assay model for SARS-CoV-2. The limit of detection of our assay detecting the spike RBD was below 10 ng/mL.application/pdfeng© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-12989-6Cell biologyNanoscale materialsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess