Recent advances in porous organic framework-based aptasensors for diagnosis of cancer diseases

The detection of biomarkers present in biological fluids (e.g., serum, blood, saliva, and urine) is the primary step for the early diagnosis of associated diseases. In this context, the great utility of porous organic frameworks (POFs), including metal, covalent, and hydrogen-bonding organic frameworks, is recognized. These frameworks in combination with aptamers can be utilized in diagnostic sensing against a range of biomarkers such as prostate-specific antigens, carcinoembryonic antigens, alpha-fetoprotein, mucin 1, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2, and exosomes. This article outlines the recent breakthroughs in advancing aptamer-functionalized POFs for the sensing of cancer biomarkers with respect to sensing principles, sensing mechanisms (including POFs directly as signal probes or as carriers for loading signal probes), and performance (with a focus on sensitivity). Finally, the challenges and prospects related to the development of aptamer-functionalized POFs are discussed for their upscaled sensing application toward cancer biomarkers in real biological samples.