Identifying tumor cell-released extracellular vesicles as biomarkers for breast cancer diagnosis by a three-dimensional hydrogel-based electrochemical immunosensor

作者：Yue Zhang, Deng Pan, Zhenqiang Ning, Fang Huang, Yiting Wei, Mingming Zhang, Yuanjian Zhang, Lixin Wang, Yanfei Shen · 发表于：Journal of Nanobiotechnology · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1186/s12951-023-02180-y · 被引用次数：12 · 研究领域：Extracellular vesicles in disease、MicroRNA in disease regulation、Nanoplatforms for cancer theranostics

Abstract Tumor cell-released LC3 + extracellular vesicles (LC3 + EVs) participate in immunosuppression during autophagy and contribute to the occurrence and development of breast cancer. In view of the strong association between the LC3 + EVs and breast cancer, developing an effective strategy for the quantitative detection of LC3 + EVs levels with high sensitivity to identify LC3 + EVs as new biomarkers for accurate diagnosis of breast cancer is crucial, but yet not been reported. Herein, an ultrasensitive electrochemical immunosensor is presented for the quantitative determination of LC3 + EVs using a three-dimensional graphene oxide hydrogel-methylene blue composite as a redox probe, showing a low detection limit and a wide linear range. With this immunosensor, the expression levels of LC3 + EVs in various practical sample groups including different cancer cell lines, the peripheral blood of tumor-bearing mice before and after immunotherapy, and the peripheral blood from breast cancer patients with different subtypes and stages were clearly distinguished. This study demonstrated that LC3 + EVs were superior as biomarkers for the accurate diagnosis of breast cancer compared to traditional biomarkers, particularly for cancer subtype discrimination. This work would provide a new noninvasive detection tool for the early diagnosis and prognosis assessment of breast cancer in clinics.