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By detecting DNA fragments in body fluids like urine, some kinds of cancer may already be tracked in an early stage. But in order to capture them, detection sensitivity must be improved.
Researchers at the University of Twente in The Netherlands (MESA+ Institute) use electrically charged polymers for this. Not only one layer of this, but dozens. In this way they manage reaching a 25 times higher sensitivity, as they show in Chemistry of Materials journal.
Some kinds of cancer render biomarkers in body fluids. For colorectal cancer and lung cancer, by way of example, markers are present in feces and urine.
The biomarkers are DNA fragments that are representative for the specific cancer: each fragment has the characteristic sequence and mutation. Using a surface that is complementary, it’s made possible that the fragment’clicks’ on it. Another probe for each kind of cancer is essential.
Because the quantity of fragments in a sample is very small, a very sensitive technique is needed that isn’t easily fouled by the liquid. Pretreatment and purification of the sample will help. But increasing the number of binding sites on the detector is sufficient as well. This is what the UT researchers .
They do so using polyelectrolyte multilayers (PEM’s) polymers which are electrically charged and empower layer-by-layer structure that’s alternately positive and negative. PEM’s are known for their strong construction.
If you assemble them linearly, but the structure will be quite dense and with few binding places. If you build it the structure will be more and more spacious moving upward from the first layer.
This sort of DNA detection improves the use of’liquid biopsy’.
This is currently getting more attention, since it is simpler, less invasive and more economical. Liquid biopsy isn’t limited to cancer, it’s also used for neurodegenerative diseases and cystic fibrosis, for example.
University of Twente
Movilli, J., et al. (2020) Enhancement of Probe Density in DNA Sensing by Tuning the Exponential Growth Regime of Polyelectrolyte Multilayers. Chemistry of Materials. doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.0c02454.
