SPR imaging antimucin-mucin bioaffinity based biosensor as label-free tool for early cancer diagnosis. Design and detection principle

• Published in: Journal of Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials 2007-06, Vol.9 (6), p.1883-1889
• Main Authors: Stancu, I C, Fernandez-Gonzalez, A, Salzer, R
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1454-4164

This paper addresses the actual increasing interest in early cancer diagnosis, by describing a novel approach in designing a modern new and efficient label-free SPR Imaging biosensor based on the capacity of antimucin antibodies to prove cancer occurrence by monitoring mucin overexpression. The design, functioning principle of the biosensor and the analysis methods are presented. This new generation of sensors is intended as a revolutionary diagnosis tool exploiting the very sensitive and label-free optical SPR Imaging technique, ideally corresponding to the study of ultrathin biomolecular layers and biological interactions. Saliva is used as biologic fluid to be analysed, mainly due to its non-invasive and stress-free collection. Nevertheless, the described Imaging method allows the acquisition of data for the entire probe simultaneously, this affording the enormous advantage of analysing a big number of samples at once, in a very precise, reproducible and brief procedure, easy to implement in any diagnosis centres.