Development of an Electrochemical Impedimetric Biosensor for the Detection of Telomerase Activity in Cancer Cells

In the last decade, a great amount of effort has gone into developing methods and devices that detect early signs of cancer diseases fast and with high efficiency. Telomerase based biosensors are an attractive alternative that comply with this requirements. Telomerase serves as a cancer biomarker because it is present in the vast majority of cancers. This enzyme elongates telomeres at the end of the chromosomal DNA, which causes cancer cells to become immortal. In this work, we developed a modified inter-digitated array gold microelectrode as the sensing platform with Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) as the measuring technique for the telomerase activity. The resulting DNA biosensor detects telomerase activity in total protein extracts from Jurkat T-acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells. This simple system is a good proof of concept for a fast and efficient method that can detect telomerase activity in cancer cells.