Rapid and sensitive detection of exosomal microRNAs by terahertz metamaterials

[Display omitted] •6-miRNAs were concentrated on the same detection platform, and their detection was achieved within 3 h.•The platform demonstrated excellent sensitivity, achieving a minimum detection limit of 12.54 aM.•It possesses outstanding anti-interference capabilities, enabling effective differentiation of single-base mismatch sequences.•Highly correlated miRNAs were successfully detected in 10 patients with pancreatic cancer, and the optimal combination of miRNAs was selected for joint diagnosis, with an AUC of 0.980. Exosomal microRNAs (miRNAs) are among the most common biomarkers for tumor diagnosis. However, single-miRNA detection lacks ideal sensitivity and specificity for diagnosing a certain tumor in clinics. In this work, we fabricated a convenient multi-miRNA detection platform for sensitive and specific detection on exosomal miRNAs in the plasma of patients using a terahertz (THz) metamaterial biosensor on the basis of strand displacement amplification (SDA) and AuNPs. The proposed multi-miRNA detection platform was highly sensitive to miRNA-15, miRNA-21, miRNA-145, miRNA-155, miRNA-423, and miRNA-451, and the limit of detection (LOD) obtained were 12.54 aM, 19.66 aM, 17.50 aM, 25.40 aM, 24.11 aM and 26.59 aM, respectively. The biosensor we constructed can be used to diagnose pancreatic cancer patients effectively in complex clinical samples. The use of multiple miRNAs demonstrated strong practicality in the combined diagnosis of patients with pancreatic cancer. These studies demonstrate that the multi-RNA detection platform boasts advantages such as low cost, rapid, high sensitivity, and specificity, offering a potential tool for future clinical applications.