Surface enhanced Raman detection of the colon cancer biomarker cytidine by using magnetized nanoparticles of the type Fe 3 O 4 /Au/Ag

Cytidine is regarded as an early marker of colon cancer. The authors describe a surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) technique to detect trace levels of cytidine in urine. The Raman band at 784 cm can be acquired best. Compared to earlier methods, an improvement in detection sensitivity by a factor of 6.2 × 10 is achieved by using a magnetically induced method in which cytidine is captured in the vicinity of the SERS hot spots of the type Fe O /Au/Ag. Cytidine can be quantified at 1 nM levels by this method which is simple and reliable. Graphical Abstract Clusters consisting of magnetite (Fe O ) nanoparticles, gold nanoparticles and silver nanoparticles were prepared and used in a SERS based method for detection of cytidine in urine by using magnetic improvement. The lowest detectable concentration of cytidine are at the nM level.