Designing nanomaterial-enhanced electrochemical immunosensors for cancer biomarker proteins

Detection of multiple cancer biomarker proteins in human serum and tissue at point-of-care is a viable approach for early cancer detection, but presents a major challenge to bioanalytical device development. This article reviews recent approaches developed in our laboratories combining nanoparticle decorated electrodes and multilabeled secondary antibody labeled particles to achieve high sensitivity for the detection of cancer biomarker proteins. Two nanomaterial-based sensor platforms were used: (a) upright single wall carbon nanotube forests and (b) layers of densely packed 5 nm gold nanoparticles. Both platforms feature pendant carboxylate groups for easy attachment of enzymes or antibodies by amidization. In quality performance tests, the biocatalytic responses for determination of hydrogen peroxide of AuNP layers with attached horseradish peroxidase (HRP) on electrodes gave somewhat better detection limit and sensitivity than single wall carbon nanotube (SWNT) forest platforms with HRP attached. Evaluation of these sensors as platforms for sandwich immunoassays for cancer biomarker prostate specific antigen (PSA) in serum showed that both approaches gave accurate results for human serum samples from cancer patients. The best detection limit (0.5 pg mL− 1) and sensitivity were obtained by combining the AuNP immunosensors with binding of 1 μm diameter magnetic particles decorated with secondary antibodies and 7500 HRP labels.