Tahereh Tohidi Moghadam, a university lecturer and the senior researcher in the study told Mehr News that the biosensors had been developed in lower costs, but enjoyed higher sensitivity, selectivity, and speed; “today, applications of gold nanorods with unique properties in diagnosis and treatment of diseases have been in the spotlight; designing and developing of biosensors in nanoscales, targeted treatment, gene transfer, thermotherapy and light therapy, imaging agents, and medical diagnosis are among the potential applications,” she added.
“The study seeks to design an efficient system to diagnose leukemia with the help of gold nanorods; to this end, we examined samples of a nanobiosensor for their functionality in diagnostics,” Tohidi Moghadam told Mehr.
“Presense of specific proteins in biological fluids of the humans (blood, saliva, urine) in certain concentrations would be a harbinger of a serious condition in the body; thus, survey and measure of these proteins would be of great value in diagnosis and seeking treatment for diseases,” she detailed.
“Lysozyme was selected as the target molecule, since an excessive release of lysozyme would indicate impaired kidney function as well as leukemia; our results aided by biosensor developed during the study indicated that lysozyme is detectable by bare eyes in-vitro,” she said.
Tohidi Moghadam then provided the advantages of using of the biosensor vis-à-vis other diagnostic methods; “in some methods, the diagnostic test are time-intensive, costly, and difficult; for example, common methods of diagnosing lysozyme are turbidimetry, electrophoresis of lysozyme and ELIZA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) which pose difficulties of complexity in process, sensitivity, costliness, energy and human labor; while our designed system is less complex and easily accessible for public in low costs and functions rapidly,” she claimed.
“To improve the efficiency of the biosensor in lower concentrations of the protein, using temperature component works effectively in improving quality and diagnosis time,” Tohidimoghadam added.
“First, Gold nanorods were bio-functionalized with lysozyme aptamer and characterized with UV–Visible and FTIR spectroscopy, zeta potential analyzer and transmission electron microscopy. Exposure of the nanoprobe to nano molar levels of lysozyme (20 nmol L À 1) lead to dictated aggregation of the nanostructures at ambient temperature; which was significantly improved by heat induced morphological perturbations and rapid detection by the naked eye (down to pico molar level). Qualitative analysis of acute myeloid leukemia, acute lymphocytic leukemia and lymphoma blood serums showed sensitivity and specificity of the fabricated aptasensor under both temperature conditions,” reads the abstract of the paper published in Talanta, The International Journal of Pure and Applied Analytical Chemistry.
SH/2947233
Your Comment