Sensitive electrochemical biosensor for rapid detection of sEV-miRNA based turbo-like localized catalytic hairpin assembly

Abstract

Small extracellular vesicle-associated microRNAs (sEV-miRNAs) have emerged as critical biomarkers for cancer diagnosis, yet the rapid detection of these low-abundance molecules in clinical samples remains a formidable challenge. Herein, a simple turbo-like localized catalytic hairpin assembly (TL-CHA) was proposed for sEV-miR-1246 measurement. This electrochemical sensor achieves dual localization through the ingeniously use of AuNPs and DNA nanowires, which provides rich sites for CHA cascade amplification, significantly enhancing the effective reaction and amplify the detection response. Leveraging this innovative design, this biosensor demonstrated the ability to detect sEV-miRNA at concentrations as low as 5.24 aM in a time frame of 30 min. The precision of the measurements was validated through reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Furthermore, the sensor was used for analyzing plasma samples from gastric cancer patients yielded AUC values of 0.973 for all stages and 0.945 for early stages. This demonstrates the sensor's robust performance in both the staging diagnosis and early screening of gastric cancer. Therefore, this platform has great potential for the clinical cancer diagnosis.