Detection of novel biomarkers for ovarian cancer with an optical nanotechnology detection system enabling label-free diagnostics

Abstract

Abstract. Ovarian carcinoma has the highest lethality rate of gynecologic tumors, largely attributed to the late-stage diagnosis of the disease. Reliable tools for both accurate diagnosis and early detection of disease onset are lacking, and presently less than 20% of ovarian cancers are detected at an early stage. Protein biomarkers that allow the discrimination of early and late stages of ovarian serous carcinomas are urgently needed as they would enable monitoring pre-symptomatic aspects of the disease, disease progression, and the efficacy of intervention therapies. We compare the absolute and relative protein levels of six protein biomarkers for ovarian cancer in five different established ovarian cancer cell lines, utilizing both quantitative immunoblot analysis and a guided-mode resonance (GMR) bioassay detection system that utilizes a label-free optical biosensor readout. The GMR sensor approach provided highly accurate, consistent, and reproducible quantification of protein biomarkers as validated by quantitative immunoblotting, as well as enhanced sensitivity, and is therefore suitable for quantification and detection of novel biomarkers for ovarian cancer. We identified fibronectin, apolipoprotein A1, and TIMP3 as potential protein biomarkers for the differential diagnosis of primary versus metastatic ovarian carcinoma. Future studies are needed to confirm the suitability of protein biomarkers tested herein in patient samples.

Association of MGMT promoter methylation with tumorigenesis features in patients with ovarian cancer: A systematic meta‐analysis

“…Due to difficulties of early detection, most patients with ovarian cancer are diagnosed with high stages of this disease. Five‐year survival rate at advanced‐stage ovarian carcinoma remains <20% (Heintz et al., ; Kaja et al., ). Serous histology is the most common ovarian cancer, and other histotypes include mucinous, endometrioid, clear cell tumors, and undifferentiated carcinomas, etc.…”

All-polymer photonic crystal slab sensor

“…In addition to providing means for novel optical elements, such as wavelength selective mirrors, polarizers [1], waveplates [2], tunable filters [3][4][5][6][7] and ultrabroadband mirrors [8], such resonant gratings have increasingly found their way into a myriad of different sensing applications, such as chemical and environmental sensing [9,10], label-free biosensing [11][12][13], cancer screening [14,15], photonic crystal enhanced microscopy [16] and three dimensional imaging [17]. These resonant gratings, referred to here as photonic crystal slabs (PCS) [18], but also known as guided mode resonance filters or reflectors [1,19] and photonic crystal resonant reflectors [20] in the literature, are essentially slab waveguides in which the high refractive index waveguide core is in some way periodically modulated, such as by refractive index or thickness, and surrounded by cladding media of lower refractive indices [1,18].…”

Hypermethylated APC in serous carcinoma based on a meta-analysis of ovarian cancer

“…Serous carcinoma is the most common histotype of ovarian cancer and accounts for the majority of deaths [ 2 ]. This is possibly due to the lack of symptoms of early-stage disease and effective early detection methods; less than 20 % of ovarian cancer patients can be diagnosed early [ 3 ]. The diagnosis of ovarian cancer is frequently determined at an advanced stage and most patients are treated via surgery combined with chemotherapy drugs [ 4 ].…”