Nanoarchitectonics of composite biosensor for early detection of hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common primary tumors in the liver. Diagnosis of HCC was investigated by detecting Glypican-3 (GPC3) protein using two approaches based on nanotechnology: developing a biosensor using a screen-printed electrode and designing and fabricating a paper-based biosensor using paper chromatography. The developed approaches were modified with multi-walled carbon nanotubes. Next, immobilized with anti-Glypican-3 antibodies, then deposited by native cow Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA). The characterizing techniques included scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetry (CV), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Moreover, differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) was used to detect GPC3 protein in a concentration range of 0.0001 ng/ml to 100 ng/ml. In this study, screen-printed electrodes achieved high sensitivity (i.e., the limit of detection (LOD) equals 0.495 pg/ml) of GPC3 along with correlation coefficient (R2) equals 0.996. Meanwhile, paper-based electrodes attained slightly lower sensitivity (LOD of 0.597 pg/ml) and R2 of 0.983.