Nasopharyngeal cancer screening and immunotherapy efficacy evaluation based on plasma separation combined with label-free SERS technology

IF 5.7 2区化学 Q1 CHEMISTRY, ANALYTICAL

Analytica Chimica Acta Pub Date : 2025-04-14 DOI:10.1016/j.aca.2025.344070

Ruiying Lin , Zhangying Jiang , Jinyong Lin , Feifei Tong , Yangmin Wu , Jinquan Hong , Sufang Qiu , Qiong Wu

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Abstract

Background

In recent years, significant progress has been made in the treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). The application of immunotherapy, especially the use of Programmed Cell Death Protein 1 inhibitors, has demonstrated excellent therapeutic effects. However, inconsistent immunotherapy outcomes due to individual differences in patients remain a major challenge, making the search for specific biomarkers to screen for the population who may benefit from immunotherapy a priority. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has shown great potential as a highly sensitive and specific optical analytical tool for identifying and monitoring tumor-related markers in NPC.

Results

In this study, plasma samples from Nasopharyngeal cancer patients before and after immunotherapy, along with those from healthy volunteers, were tested using label-free SERS combined with plasmapheresis. Especially, the components with varying molecular weight sizes were analyzed via the separation process, thereby preventing the potential loss of diagnostic information that could result from competitive adsorption. Subsequently, a robust machine learning algorithm based on principal component analysis and linear discriminant analysis (PCA-LDA) was used to extract features from plasma SERS data and establish an effective discriminant model. The results showed that in the upper plasma layer, the most optimal discrimination was found between normal patients and those post-treatment, with sensitivity and specificity of 88.5 % and 92.3 %, respectively. In the lower plasma layer, the most optimal discrimination was found between the pre-treatment and post-treatment patients, with sensitivity and specificity of 84.6 % and 80.8 %, respectively.

Significance and novelty

Plasmapheresis can reveal latent diagnostic information in the plasma and holds promise for treating NPC, the screening of the population who may benefit from immunotherapy, and the postoperative evaluation of immunotherapy. Further exploration of the feasibility of using SERS to detect tumor markers in the population who may benefit from immunotherapy for NPC will help improve the therapeutic efficacy, optimize clinical practice, and promote the development of individualized treatment strategies.

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基于血浆分离和无标记 SERS 技术的鼻咽癌筛查和免疫疗法疗效评估

背景近年来，鼻咽癌的治疗取得了重大进展。免疫疗法的应用，尤其是程序性细胞死亡蛋白 1 抑制剂的使用，已显示出良好的治疗效果。然而，由于患者的个体差异而导致的免疫疗法结果不一致仍然是一大挑战，因此寻找特定的生物标志物来筛选可能从免疫疗法中获益的人群成为当务之急。结果在这项研究中，使用无标记 SERS 结合血浆分离法检测了免疫疗法前后鼻咽癌患者的血浆样本以及健康志愿者的血浆样本。特别是，通过分离过程分析了不同分子量大小的成分，从而避免了竞争性吸附可能导致的诊断信息丢失。随后，一种基于主成分分析和线性判别分析（PCA-LDA）的稳健机器学习算法被用来从血浆 SERS 数据中提取特征并建立有效的判别模型。结果显示，在血浆上层，正常患者和治疗后患者之间的判别效果最佳，灵敏度和特异度分别为88.5%和92.3%。在血浆下层，治疗前和治疗后患者之间的鉴别效果最佳，灵敏度和特异性分别为 84.6% 和 80.8%。意义和新颖性血浆分离可揭示血浆中潜在的诊断信息，有望用于治疗鼻咽癌、筛选可能从免疫疗法中获益的人群以及免疫疗法的术后评估。进一步探索使用 SERS 检测鼻咽癌免疫疗法受益人群中肿瘤标志物的可行性，将有助于提高疗效、优化临床实践和促进个体化治疗策略的发展。

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来源期刊

Analytica Chimica Acta 化学-分析化学

CiteScore

10.40

自引率

6.50%

发文量

1081

审稿时长

38 days

期刊介绍： Analytica Chimica Acta has an open access mirror journal Analytica Chimica Acta: X, sharing the same aims and scope, editorial team, submission system and rigorous peer review. Analytica Chimica Acta provides a forum for the rapid publication of original research, and critical, comprehensive reviews dealing with all aspects of fundamental and applied modern analytical chemistry. The journal welcomes the submission of research papers which report studies concerning the development of new and significant analytical methodologies. In determining the suitability of submitted articles for publication, particular scrutiny will be placed on the degree of novelty and impact of the research and the extent to which it adds to the existing body of knowledge in analytical chemistry.