1 research outputs found
Graphene Sensor Arrays for Rapid and Accurate Detection of Pancreatic Cancer Exosomes in Patientsā Blood Plasma Samples
Biosensors based on graphene field effect transistors
(GFETs) have
the potential to enable the development of point-of-care diagnostic
tools for early stage disease detection. However, issues with reproducibility
and manufacturing yields of graphene sensors, but also with Debye
screening and unwanted detection of nonspecific species, have prevented
the wider clinical use of graphene technology. Here, we demonstrate
that our wafer-scalable GFETs array platform enables meaningful clinical
results. As a case study of high clinical relevance, we demonstrate
an accurate and robust portable GFET array biosensor platform for
the detection of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) in patientsā
plasma through specific exosomes (GPC-1 expression) within 45 min.
In order to facilitate reproducible detection in blood plasma, we
optimized the analytical performance of GFET biosensors via the application
of an internal control channel and the development of an optimized
test protocol. Based on samples from 18 PDAC patients and 8 healthy
controls, the GFET biosensor arrays could accurately discriminate
between the two groups while being able to detect early cancer stages
including stages 1 and 2. Furthermore, we confirmed the higher expression
of GPC-1 and found that the concentration in PDAC plasma was on average
more than 1 order of magnitude higher than in healthy samples. We
found that these characteristics of GPC-1 cancerous exosomes are responsible
for an increase in the number of target exosomes on the surface of
graphene, leading to an improved signal response of the GFET biosensors.
This GFET biosensor platform holds great promise for the development
of an accurate tool for the rapid diagnosis of pancreatic cancer