Highly Sensitive SERS Quantification of the Oncogenic Protein c-Jun in Cellular Extracts

Abstract

A surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-based sensor was developed for the detection of the oncoprotein c-Jun at nanomolar levels. c-Jun is a member of the bZIP (basic zipper) family of dimeric transcriptional activators, and its overexpression has been associated with carcinogenic mechanisms in several human cancers. For our sensing purpose, we exploited the ability of c-Jun to heterodimerize with its native protein partner, c-Fos, and therefore designed a c-Fos peptide receptor chemically modified to incorporate a thiophenol (TP) group at the N-terminal site. The TP functionality anchors the c-Fos protein onto the metal substrate and works as an effective SERS probe to sense the structural rearrangements associated with the c-Fos/c-Jun heterodimerization.

Charge-Transfer Effect on Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) in an Ordered Ag NPs/4-Mercaptobenzoic Acid/TiO2 System

“…33 After the glass/Ag NPs/MBA system was coated with TiO 2 layer (Figure 4b), some changes in the relative intensity of different peaks were observed. For comparison, the Raman spectra were normalized using the band at 1075 cm −1 .…”

Highly selective and sensitive surface enhanced Raman scattering nanosensors for detection of hydrogen peroxide in living cells

“…These changes of characteristic SERS bands indicate the H 2 O 2 -mediated transformation of arylboronates to phenols on Au NPs. Specially, the significant SERS shift of C ¼C stretching vibration from 1562 to 1600 cm À 1 may be due to the change in polarizability of the phenyl ring on Au NPs surface resulting from the transformation of boronic acid groups of 4-CA into hydroxyl groups (Kho et al, 2012;Guerrini et al, 2013), which could be used as spectral markers for monitoring the reaction of Au NPs/4-CA and H 2 O 2 . The H 2 O 2 -sensed reaction was further confirmed by HPLC-MS analysis (Fig.…”

Inorganic nanoparticles for biomedicine: where materials scientists meet medical research

“…Another advanced method to generate differences in SERS signals has been explored by Guerrini and colleagues [39]. Rather than relying on hotspots (such as reported in [37,38]), their method focused on the spectral shift that occurs when a Raman tag (covalently bound to a receptor) binds a peptide ligand (Fig.…”

“…In the case of a biorecognition event by a complementary nucleic acid sequence to the oncoprotein c-Jun, a deformation on the Raman probe occurs leading to a significant shift of certain SERS peaks [39]. Copyright 2014, American Chemical Society.…”