The development of an aptamer-based electrochemical sensor for lung cancer detection is presented in this work. A highly specific DNA-aptamer, LC-18, selected to postoperative lung cancer tissues was immobilized onto a gold microelectrode and electrochemical measurements were performed in a solution containing the redox marker ferrocyanide/ferricyanide. The aptamer protein targets were harvested from blood plasma of lung cancer patients by using streptavidin paramagnetic beads and square wave voltammetry of the samples was performed at various concentrations. In order to enhance the sensitivity of the aptasensor, silica-coated iron oxide magnetic beads grafted with hydrophobic C8 and C4 alkyl groups were used in a sandwich detection approach. Addition of hydrophobic beads increased the detection limit by 100 times. The detection limit of the LC-18 aptasensor was enhanced by the beads to 0.023 ng/mL. The formation of the aptamer – protein – bead sandwich on the electrode surface was visualized by electron microcopy. As a result, the electrochemical aptasensor was able to detect cancer-related targets in crude blood plasma of lung cancer patients.

The aimof this work is the development and demonstration of the method of simultaneous detection of several biomarkers of lung cancer in the blood plasma of patients using a multiplex electrochemical testing system based on DNA aptamers. DNA aptamers are a new class of synthetic affinity probes obtained by in vitro or in vivo selection procedure by the systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX).Materials and methods.A set of aptamers obtained previously by selection for postoperative lung cancer tissue was used to create a multiplex electrochemical biochip. Identification of aptamer target proteins was performed using a modified affinity enrichment method (AptaBID). Molecular targets for the used set of aptamers to lung cancer were defined as vimentin, defensin, a light chain of myosin, tubulin alpha 1-B, neutrophil elastase and A1 elongation factor 1.Measurements of the presence of these biomarker proteins in blood plasma were carried out using electrochemical detection. The difference between peak heights before and after plasma deposition on the electrodes modified by aptamers was considered as a response of the system to the presence of protein onco-markers in blood plasma. Blood plasma of healthy volunteers was used as control.Results. Research showed that in the blood plasma of all the patients with lung cancer the content of biomarker proteins that bind to aptamers on electrode surfaces was increased. The increased content of these proteins in the blood plasma of patients suggests the presence of invasiveness and metastasis of tumors and their chemo-resistance.