A nanoplasmonic biosensor for early detection of colorectal cancer

Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer and the fourth most common cause of death around the world. It is easily curable when detected early, thereby prevention and regular screening play crucial roles in the fight against this cancer. Sampling of colon biopsies and the detection of faecal occult blood are the most extended diagnosis techniques. Thus, there is an evident need for novel screening tools for a less invasive and more specific screening and diagnosis. The ICN2 Nanobiosensors and Bioanalytical Applications Group, led by Prof Laura M. Lechuga, proposed a nanoplasmonic biosensor for colorectal cancer autoantibody detection in an article published in Analytica Chimica Acta. The first authors of the work are Maria Soler and M. Carmen Estevez, from ICN2, who collaborated with researchers from Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas (CIB-CSIC).

Blood circulating autoantibodies which are immediately produced by the immune system at tumor appearance have become valuable biomarkers for preclinical diagnosis of cancer. In this work, the ICN2 Group presents the rapid and label-free detection of colorectal cancer autoantibodies directly in blood serum or plasma using a recently developed nanoplasmonic biosensor.

The nanoplasmonic device offers sensitive and real-time quantification of autoantibodies with excellent selectivity and reproducibility, achieving limits of detection around 1 nM (150–160 ng mL−1). A preliminary evaluation of clinical samples of colorectal cancer patients has shown good correlation with ELISA. These results demonstrate the reliability of the nanobiosensor strategy and pave the way towards the achievement of a sensitive diagnostic tool for early detection of colorectal cancer.

The present article was developed in the context of the biomedical devices designed by the ICN2 Group led by Prof Laura M. Lechuga and the COLONTEST project, shared with companies and research partners such as IDIBAPS, the research center of the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona. Thus, the new approaches designed at the nanoscale by the ICN2 researchers are close to a clinical validation process through its usual collaborators.

Article reference:

Maria Soler, M.-Carmen Estevez, Roi Villar-Vazquez, J. Ignacio Casal, Laura M. Lechuga. Label-free nanoplasmonic sensing of tumor-associate autoantibodies for early diagnosis of colorectal cancer. Analytica Chimica Acta. Volume 930, 3 August 2016, Pages 31–38.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aca.2016.04.059