Cancer Biomarker Detection in Serum Samples Using Surface Plasmon Resonance and Quartz Crystal Microbalance Sensors with Nanoparticle Signal Amplification

Early detection of cancer is vital for the successful treatment of the disease. Hence, a rapid and sensitive diagnosis is essential before the cancer is spread out to the other body organs. Here we describe the development of a point-of-care immunosensor for the detection of the cancer biomarker (total prostate-specific antigen, tPSA) using surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) sensor platforms in human serum samples. K D of the antibody used toward PSA was calculated as 9.46 × 10–10 M, indicating high affinity of the antibody used in developing the assay. By performing a sandwich assay using antibody-modified nanoparticles concentrations of 2.3 ng mL–1 (Au, 20 nm) and 0.29 ng mL–1 (8.5 pM) (Au, 40 nm) tPSA in 75% human serum were detected using the developed assay on an SPR sensor chip. The SPR sensor results were found to be comparable to that achieved using a QCM sensor platform, indicating that both systems can be applied for disease biomarkers screening. The clinical applicability of the developed immunoassay can therefore be successfully applied to patient’s serum samples. This demonstrates the high potential of the developed sensor devices as platforms for clinical prostate cancer diagnosis and prognosis.