Comparison of Radioimmuno and Carbon Nanotube Field-Effect Transistor Assays for Measuring Insulin-Like Growth Factor-1 in a Preclinical Model of Human Breast Cancer

Journal of Nanobiotechnology

Short Communication

Laundette P Jones¹  Steingrimur Stefansson²  Man S Kim²  Saeyoung N Ahn² 

[1] Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 655 West Baltimore St. BRB-400-2 Baltimore, 21201, Maryland, USA;Fuzbien Technology Institute, 9700 Great Seneca Hwy Suite 302, 20850, Rockville, MD, Usa;

关键词: Biomarker;    BRCA1;    Carbon Nanotube;    IGF-1;    mouse;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1477-3155-9-36

 received in 2011-02-28, accepted in 2011-09-02,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundTo realize the promise of personalized medicine, diagnostic instruments used for detecting and measuring biomarkers must become smaller, faster and less expensive. Although most techniques used currently to detect biomarkers are sensitive and specific, many suffer from several disadvantages including their complexity, high cost and long turnaround time. One strategy to overcome these problems is to exploit carbon nanotube (CNT) based biosensors, which are sensitive, use inexpensive disposable components and can be easily adapted to current assay protocols. In this study we investigated the applicability of using a CNT field-effect transistor (CNT-FET) as a diagnostic instrument for measuring cancer biomarkers in serum using a mouse model of Breast Cancer Susceptibility 1-related breast cancer. Insulin like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) was chosen because it is highly relevant in breast cancer and because measuring serum IGF-1 levels by conventional methods is complicated due to specific IGF-1 serum binding proteins.FindingsOur results show that there is good correlation between the two platforms with respect to detecting serum IGF-1. In fact, the CNT-FETs required only one antibody, gave real-time results and required approximately 100-fold less mouse serum than the radioimmunoassay.ConclusionsBoth IGF-1 radioimmuno and CNT-FET assays gave comparable results. Indeed, the CNT-FET assay was simpler and faster than the radioimmunoassay. Additionally, the low serum sample required by CNT-FETs can be especially advantageous for studies constricted by limited amount of human clinical samples and for mouse studies, since animals often need to be sacrificed to obtain enough serum for biomarker evaluation.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Jones et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011