Simultaneous Detection of Dual Prostate Specific Antigens Using Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering-Based Immunoassay for Accurate Diagnosis of Prostate Cancer

Accurate analysis of specific biomarkers in clinical serum is essential for early diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Here, a surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-based immunoassay, using magnetic beads and SERS nano tags, was developed for the determination of free to total (f/t) prostate specific antigen (PSA) ratio to improve the diagnostic performance of prostate cancer. To assess the clinical applicability of the proposed method, SERS-based assays for the simultaneous detection of dual PSA markers, free PSA (f-PSA) and complexed PSA (c-PSA), were performed for clinical samples in the gray zone between 4.0 and 10.0 ng/mL. Our assay results for f/t PSA ratio showed a good linear correlation with those measured using the electrochemiluminescence (ECL) system installed in the clinical laboratory of the University Hospital. In addition, the simultaneous assay provided better precision than parallel assays for the detection of f-PSA and c-PSA in 13 clinical serum samples. Therefore, our SERS-based assay for simultaneous detection of dual PSA markers in clinical fluids has strong potential for application in the accurate diagnosis of prostate cancer.

准确分析临床血清中的特定生物标志物对于癌症的早期诊断和治疗至关重要。这里，开发了一种基于表面增强拉曼散射 (SERS) 的免疫测定法，使用磁珠和 SERS 纳米标签来测定游离与总 (f/t) 前列腺特异性抗原 (PSA) 的比率，以提高前列腺癌的诊断性能。为了评估所提出方法的临床适用性，对 4.0 至 10.0 ng/mL 之间灰色区域的临床样本进行了基于 SERS 的同时检测双 PSA 标记物、游离 PSA (f-PSA) 和复合 PSA (c-PSA) 的测定。我们的 f/t PSA 比值测定结果与使用大学医院临床实验室安装的电化学发光 (ECL) 系统测量的结果显示出良好的线性相关性。此外，在检测 13 份临床血清样本中的 f-PSA 和 c-PSA 时，同步测定比平行测定提供了更好的精度。因此，我们基于SERS的同时检测临床体液中双PSA标记物的检测方法在前列腺癌的准确诊断中具有巨大的应用潜力。