Abstract
In this mini-review, we briefly describe certain recently developed applications of the surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) for determining various biochemically (especially medically) important species from ones as simple as hydrogen cations to those as complex as specific DNA fragments. We present a SERS analysis of species whose characterization is important to our understanding of various mechanisms in the human body and to show its potential as an alternative for methods routinely used in diagnostics and clinics. Furthermore, we explain how such SERS-based sensors operate and point out future prospects in this field.
Highlights
Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is one of the most sensitive analytical tools known—in some cases, it is possible to record a high-quality SERS spectrum dominated by the contribution of even a single molecule (Kneipp et al, 2008)
Some of the latest examples of label-free SERS applications are: measuring the urine of a patient to detect and monitor the risk of a relapse of prostate cancer (Ma et al, 2021); characterizing the hepatitis C viral (HCV) RNA extracted from different blood samples of patients with HCV infection (Nasir et al, 2020); diagnosing ulcerative colitis in blood plasma (Tefas et al, 2021); and assessing the effectiveness of antiplatelet therapy (Zyubin et al, 2020)
SERS sensors for detecting circulating tumor cells (CTCs) consist of a plasmonic metal, specific DNA strands complementary to the mutated DNA from those cells, and sometimes attached reporter molecules (RRMs) used to amplify the SERS signal
Summary
Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is one of the most sensitive analytical tools known—in some cases, it is possible to record a high-quality SERS spectrum dominated by the contribution of even a single molecule (Kneipp et al, 2008). We discuss the “hottest” examples of the SERS applications, divided into two groups: label-free detection with easy sample preparation and complicated data analysis, and SERS-based nanosensors, which very often produce zero-one results.
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