Cancer Biomarkers Detection in Blood using Nanosensor
Cancer Biomarkers Detection in Blood using Nanosensor
Recently, the Nano Letters, a Journal of the American Chemical Society featured a research article by a group of researchers from University of Twente and Wageningen University, Netherlands, regarding a nanosensor that detects cancer biomarkers. For detecting metastatic cancer, researchers are already looking for promising methods for cancer biomarkers in blood. But the main challenge to overcome is the extremely low concentration of these markers making difficult to detect. Tumor-derived extracellular vesicles (tdEVs) are such potential cancer biomarkers which have attracted much attention in recent years due to their abundance presence in blood than other biomarkers. But their concentration is relatively low as compared to other blood components. Second problem is the presence of particles in blood with a similar size as that of tdEVs. Keeping in view these problems, Dilu Methew and his team at NanoEctronics group at University of Twente, worked on a sensitive and selective sensor. This sensor consists of two combs woven into each other creating a small gap size around 120 nanometers between the teeth’ – the electrodes. This small gap size provides amplification of the signal leading to two levels of selection and two levels of amplification. This sensor, therefore, provides sensitivity and selectivity to detect particles at low concentration; and covers most of the clinically relevant range of tdEV detection in blood. The most unique feature of this sensor is that its sensitivity spans over six orders of magnitude. Dilu G. Mathew and his colleague Pepijn Beekman are also working on a new sensor that is able to detect a single tdEV in small amount of blood.
For more information
- New nanosensor detects cancer biomarkers in drop of blood (2020, February 13 retrieved 6 June 2020 from https://phys.org/news/2020-02-nanosensor-cancer-biomarkers-blood.html
- Dilu G. Mathew et al. Electrochemical Detection of Tumor-Derived Extracellular Vesicles on Nano interdigitated Electrodes, Nano Letters (2019). DOI:10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b02741
