Honglian Zhang

Multi-nanomaterial electrochemical biosensor based on label-free graphene for detecting cancer biomarkers

Developing a rapid, accurate and sensitive electrochemical biosensor for detecting cancer biomarkers is important for early detection and diagnosis. This work reports an electrochemical biosensor based on a graphene (GR) platform which is made by CVD, combined with magnetic beads (MBs) and enzyme-labeled antibody-gold nanoparticle bioconjugate. MBs coated with capture antibodies (Ab1) were attached to GR sheets by an external magnetic field, to avoid reducing the conductivity of graphene. Sensitivity was also enhanced by modifying the gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) with horseradish peroxidase (HRP) and the detection antibody (Ab2), to form the conjugate Ab2-AuNPs-HRP. Electron transport between the electrode and analyte target was accelerated by the multi-nanomaterial, and the limit of detection (LOD) for carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) reached 5 ng mL(-1). The multi-nanomaterial electrode GR/MBs-Ab1/CEA/Ab2-AuNPs-HRP can be used to detect biomolecules such as CEA. The EC biosensor is sensitive and specific, and has potential in the detection of disease markers.

Absolute quantification of lung cancer related microRNA by droplet digital PCR.

Digital polymerase chain reaction (digital PCR) enables the absolute quantification of nucleic acids through the counting of single molecules, thus eliminating the need for standard curves or endogenous controls. In this study, we developed a droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) system based on an oil saturated PDMS (OSP) microfluidic chip platform for quantification of lung cancer related microRNA (miRNA). The OSP chip was made with PDMS and was oil saturated to constrain oil swallow and maintain the stability of droplets. Two inlets were designed for oil and sample injection with a syringe pump at the outlet. Highly uniform monodisperse water-in-oil emulsion droplets to be used for subsequent detection and analysis were generated at the cross section of the channel. We compared miRNA quantification by the ddPCR system and quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) to demonstrate that the ddPCR system was superior to qPCR both in its detection limit and smaller fold changes measurement. This droplet PCR system provides new possibilities for highly sensitive and efficient detection of cancer-related genes.

Early Detection of Lung Cancer in Serum by a Panel of MicroRNA Biomarkers

INTRODUCTION The objective of the study was to develop a panel of microRNAs (miRNAs) as highly sensitive and specific biomarkers for lung cancer early detection. MATERIALS AND METHODS The study contained 2 phases: first, preliminary marker selection based on previous reports on the serum of 24 early stage lung cancer patients and 24 healthy control subjects by TaqMan probe-based real-time reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR); and second, validation of miRNA markers on 94 early stage lung cancer, 48 stage III to IV lung cancer, and 111 healthy control serum samples. RESULTS A total of 3 miRNAs (miR-125a-5p, miR-25, and miR-126) were selected for further analysis in this study. The combination of the 3 miRNAs could produce 0.936 area under the receiver operating characteristic curve value in distinguishing early stage lung cancer patients from control subjects with 87.5% sensitivity and 87.5% specificity, respectively. The diagnostic value of the miRNA panel in an independent set of lung cancer patients confirmed the sensitivity and specificity. CONCLUSION The results demonstrated that the panel of miRNA biomarkers had the potential for the early detection of lung cancer.

Identification of biomarkers for the detection of early stage lung adenocarcinoma by microarray profiling of long noncoding RNAs

BACKGROUND Lung adenocarcinoma has one of the poorest outcomes of any cancer worldwide, in part due to the lack of a reliable means of early detection. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been shown to be deregulated in some types of cancer; however, the contributions of lncRNAs to lung adenocarcinoma remain unknown. METHODS We described the expression profile of lncRNAs in human lung adenocarcinoma at an early stage and the corresponding adjacent nontumorous tissues (NT) by microarray. From the microarray analysis, a total of 1170 lncRNAs were significantly differentially expressed in three early stage lung adenocarcinoma tissues compared with NT (fold-change≥2.0, p≤0.05). Candidate biomarkers were selected from the significantly differentially expressed lncRNAs based on our established filtering pipeline; subsequently, marker optimization and validation by reverse transcription quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) on a total of 102 pairs of early stage lung adenocarcinoma and NT samples. RESULTS A panel of 5-lncRNA was identified that could distinguish early stage lung adenocarcinoma from NT samples with high sensitivity and specificity. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) for tumor identification in the training and validation sets were 0.978 and 0.987, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Our results are the first to reveal differentially expressed lncRNAs in early stage lung adenocarcinoma and suggest that lncRNAs may be novel candidate biomarkers for the early detection of this disease.

Label-free graphene biosensor targeting cancer molecules based on non-covalent modification.

A label-free immunosensor based on antibody-modified graphene field effect transistor (GFET) was presented. Antibodies targeting carcinoembryonic antigen (Anti-CEA) were immobilized to the graphene surface via non-covalent modification. The bifunctional molecule, 1-pyrenebutanoic acid succinimidyl ester, which is composed of a pyrene and a reactive succinimide ester group, interacts with graphene non-covalently via π-stacking. The succinimide ester group reacts with the amine group to initiate antibody surface immobilization, which was confirmed by X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy, Atomic Force Microscopy and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy. The resulting anti-CEA modified GFET sufficiently monitored the reaction between CEA protein and anti-CEA in real-time with high specificity, which revealed selective electrical detection of CEA with a limit of detection (LOD) of less than 100pg/ml. The dissociation constant between CEA protein and anti-CEA was estimated to be 6.35×10-11M, indicating the high affinity and sensitivity of anti-CEA-GFET. Taken together, the graphene biosensors provide an effective tool for clinical application and point-of-care medical diagnostics.

High-Performance Size-Based Microdevice for the Detection Of Circulating Tumor Cells from Peripheral Blood in Rectal Cancer Patients

Since individualized therapy becomes more and more important in the treatment of rectal cancer, an accurate and effective approach should be established in the clinical settings to help physicians to make their decisions. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs), originated from either primary or metastatic cancer, could provide important information for diagnosis and monitoring of cancer. However, the implication and development of CTCs are limited due to the extreme rarity of these tumor cells. In this study we fabricated a simple and high-performance microfluidic device, which exploited numerous filtered microchannels in it to enrich the large-sized target tumor cells from whole blood. A very high CTC capture efficiency (average recovery rate: 94%) was obtained in this device at the optimum flow rate of 0.5 mL/h and channel height of 5 µm. Additionally, we used this device for detecting CTCs in 60 patients with rectal cancer. The CTC counts of rectal cancer patients were significantly higher than those in healthy subjects. Furthermore, the CTC counts detected by this device were significantly higher than those by EpCAM bead-based method for rectal cancer patients with various stage. Especially, for localized rectal cancer patients, the positive rates of samples with more than 3 CTCs per 5 mL blood by use of microdevice vs. EpCAM-based ones were 100% vs. 47%, respectively. Thus, this device provides a new and effective tool for accurate identification and measurement of CTCs in patients with rectal cancer, and has broad potential in clinical practice.

Highly sensitive and selective lateral flow immunoassay based on magnetic nanoparticles for quantitative detection of carcinoembryonic antigen

Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is an important biomarker in cancer diagnosis. Here, we present an efficient, selective lateral-flow immunoassay (LFIA) based on magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) for in situ sensitive and accurate point-of-care detection of CEA. Signal amplification mechanism involved linking of detection MNPs with signal MNPs through biotin-modified single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) and streptavidin. To verify the effectiveness of this modified LFIA system, the sensitivity and specificity were evaluated. Sensitivity evaluation showed a broad detection range of 0.25-1000ng/ml for CEA protein by the modified LFIA, and the limit of detection (LOD) of the modified LFIA was 0.25ng/ml, thus producing significant increase in detection threshold compared with the traditional LFIA. The modified LFIA could selectively recognize CEA in presence of several interfering proteins. In addition, this newly developed assay was applied for quantitative detection of CEA in human serum specimens collected from 10 randomly selected patients. The modified LFIA system detected minimum 0.27ng/ml of CEA concentration in serum samples. The results were consistent with the clinical data obtained using commercial electrochemiluminescence immunoassay (ECLIA) (p<0.01). In conclusion, the MNPs based LFIA system not only demonstrated enhanced signal to noise ratio, it also detected CEA with higher sensitivity and selectivity, and thus has great potential to be commercially applied as a sensitive tumor marker filtration system.

A panel of promoter methylation markers for invasive and noninvasive early detection of NSCLC using a quantum dots-based FRET approach.

Non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) leads to a significant proportion of cancer-related deaths, and early detection of NSCLC can significantly increase cancer survival rates. A promising approach has been studied to exploit DNA methylation, which is closely correlated to early cancer diagnosis. Herein, in order to realize the early detection of NSCLC, we utilized the developed quantum dots-based (QDs-based) fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) nanosensor technique to analyze the promoter methylation in early stage NSCLC tissue samples and noninvasive bronchial brushing specimens. Using this method, the methylation levels can be quantitatively determined by measuring the signal amplification during FRET. A panel of three tumor suppressor genes (PCDHGB6, HOXA9 and RASSF1A) was assessed in 50 paired early stage NSCLC and their adjacent nontumorous tissue (NT) samples, and 50 early stage NSCLC bronchial brushing and normal specimens. The combined detection was able to identify not only tissue samples but noninvasive bronchial brushing specimens from control cases with a high degree of sensitivity of 92% (AUC=0.977, P<0.001) and 80% (AUC=0.907, P<0.001) respectively, indicating the versatility of promoter expression in invasive and noninvasive NSCLC samples. Therefore this approach can be used to sensitively analyze the methylation levels of cancer-related genes, which might be a potential tool for noninvasive early clinical diagnosis of cancers.

Direct detection of cancer biomarkers in blood using a “place n play” modular polydimethylsiloxane pump

Cancer biomarkers have significant potential as reliable tools for the early detection of the disease and for monitoring its recurrence. However, most current methods for biomarker detection have technical difficulties (such as sample preparation and specific detector requirements) which limit their application in point of care diagnostics. We developed an extremely simple, power-free microfluidic system for direct detection of cancer biomarkers in microliter volumes of whole blood. CEA and CYFRA21-1 were chosen as model cancer biomarkers. The system automatically extracted blood plasma from less than 3 μl of whole blood and performed a multiplex sample-to-answer assay (nano-ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) technique) without the use of external power or extra components. By taking advantage of the nano-ELISA technique, this microfluidic system detected CEA at a concentration of 50 pg/ml and CYFRA21-1 at a concentration of 60 pg/ml within 60 min. The combination of PnP polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) pump and nano-ELISA technique in a single microchip system shows great promise for the detection of cancer biomarkers in a drop of blood.

Detection of Hepatitis B Virus Deoxyribonucleic Acid Based on Gold Nanoparticle Probe Chip

Abstract Nanoparticle-based bio-barcode amplification (BCA) approach was developed for the sensitive detection of hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA. The BCA approach employed two sets of particles: (1) two-component oligonucleotide-modified gold nanoparticles (AuNPs): one oligonucleotide probe called signal probe (barcode DNA) is partially complementary with the target sequence of HBV DNA, and another one called detection probe is partially complementary with the signal probe; (2) single component oligonucleotide-modified magnetic microparticles (MMPs). In the presence of the target molecule, the gold nanoparticles and magnetic particles formed sandwich hybrids. Along with the isolation of sandwiched hybrids from the sample using a magnet, nonspecific-bound gold nanoparticles were removed, ensuring that only target-bound gold nanoparticles were collected. Subsequently, the bar-code DNAs were dehybridized from the gold nanoparticle by using the dithiothreitol (DTT). The detection probe with AuNP mixed with bar-code DNA solution was then added to a bar-code capture DNA-modified chip, and the spots on chip were labeled with bar-code DNA strands and AuNP probes. Finally, the scanometric detection of silver stain was introduced to further amplify the signal. The results showed that it was possible in a format that offers low fM (10−15 M) sensitivity in the detection of HBV DNA sample, and there is a good linear relationship between target concentration and spot intensity on chip. The detection of the assay could be fulfilled within 1.5 h. The method could provide a new generation of diagnostic assays for HBV or the other infectious disease.