DNA Tetrahedral Nanostructure-Based Electrochemical miRNA Biosensor for Simultaneous Detection of Multiple miRNAs in Pancreatic Carcinoma

Specific and sensitive biomarker detection is essential to early cancer diagnosis. In this study, we demonstrate an ultrasensitive electrochemical biosensor with the ability to detect multiple pancreatic carcinoma (PC)-related microRNA biomarkers. By employing DNA tetrahedral nanostructure capture probes to enhance the detection sensitivity as well as a disposable 16-channel screen-printed gold electrode (SPGE) detection platform to enhance the detection efficiency, we were able to simultaneously detect four PC-related miRNAs: miRNA21, miRNA155, miRNA196a, and miRNA210. The detection sensitivity reached to as low as 10 fM. We then profiled the serum levels of the four miRNAs for PC patients and healthy individuals with our multiplexing electrochemical biosensor. Through the combined analyses of the four miRNAs, our results showed that PC patients could be discriminated from healthy controls with fairly high sensitivity. This multiplexing PCR-free miRNA detection sensor shows promising applications in early diagnosis of PC disease.