pH-responsive allochroic nanoparticles for the multicolor detection of breast cancer biomarkers

Publication date: Available online 11 October 2019Source: Biosensors and BioelectronicsAuthor(s): Weiqing Xu, Lei Jiao, Huarong Ye, Zhenzhong Guo, Yu Wu, Hongye Yan, Wenling Gu, Dan Du, Yuehe Lin, Chengzhou ZhuAbstractEstrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2) are the three crucial biomarkers for the clinical diagnosis of breast cancer. Sensitive and precise detection of ER, PR, and HER2 is of great significance for the diagnosis of breast cancer. Herein, through a simple solvent-induced self-assembly process, the self-carried allochroic nanoparticles were prepared to improve enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and further used in the colorimetric detection of ER, PR, and HER2, respectively. Some hydrophobic pH indicator molecules as signal molecules were used as templates in the self-assembly process, which can respond quickly toward pH changes. Meanwhile, the introduction of bovine serum albumin (BSA) and antibody (Ab) enhanced the stability and selectivity of the self-assembled nanoparticles as signal tags in ELISA. Since the ultra-high loading and high-efficiency release of pH indicators, the proposed method exhibits a comparable performance with the detection strategy in hospitals, which demonstrated the great potential in the early diagnosis and postoperative monitoring of breast cancers. Furthermore, the smartphone was introduced to combine with the improved ELISA for point-of-care testing without the p...
Source: Biosensors and Bioelectronics - Category: Biotechnology Source Type: research