The
engineering strategy of artificial biointerfaces is vital for
governing their performances in bioanalysis and diagnosis. Highly
ordered arrangement of affinity ligands on the interface surface facilitates
efficient interaction with target molecules, whereas biointerfaces
aimed at drug delivery or rare cell isolation require sophisticated
stimuli-response mechanisms. However, it is still challenging to facilely
fabricate biointerfaces possessing the two features. Herein, we endow
a biointerface with both reversibility and capability to orderly assemble
affinity ligands by introducing boronic acid moieties alone. By boronate
conjugation via glycosylation sites, avidin was well arranged at the
surface of boronic acid-decorated carbon nitride nanosheets for the
assembly of biotinylated aptamers. The ordered orientation of aptamers
largely relieved their inactivation caused by inter-strand entanglement,
facilitating significant increase in cell affinity for the isolation
of circulating tumor cells (CTCs). The reversible boronate conjugation
also facilitated mild release of CTCs by acid fructose with high cell
viability. This engineered interface was capable of isolating CTCs
from the peripheral blood of tumor-bearing mice and cancer patients.
The successful utilization of the isolated CTCs in the downstream
drug susceptibility test and mutation analysis demonstrated the clinical
potential of this biointerface for the early diagnosis of cancers
and precision medicine.
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