Non plasmonic semiconductor quantum SERS probe as a pathway for in vitro cancer detection

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 9; no. 1; pp. 3065 - 18
• Main Authors: Haldavnekar, Rupa, Venkatakrishnan, Krishnan, Tan, Bo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Nature Publishing Group 03.08.2018; Nature Publishing Group UK; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: Animals; Biocompatibility; Biocompatible Materials; Cancer; Cell Adhesion; Cell adhesion & migration; Cell Line - ultrastructure; Cell Line, Tumor - ultrastructure; Cell Proliferation; Dendritic structure; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; DNA probes; HeLa Cells; Humans; Lipids; Mice; Molecular Diagnostic Techniques - methods; Molecular Probes - chemistry; Molecular Probes - ultrastructure; Nanomaterials; Nanotechnology; Neoplasms - diagnosis; NIH 3T3 Cells - ultrastructure; Particle Size; Probes; Proteins; Quantum Dots - chemistry; Quantum Dots - ultrastructure; Raman spectra; Ribonucleic acid; RNA; Semiconductors; Spectrum Analysis, Raman - methods; Zinc oxide; Zinc Oxide - chemistry
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05237-x

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-based cancer diagnostics is an important analytical tool in early detection of cancer. Current work in SERS focuses on plasmonic nanomaterials that suffer from coagulation, selectivity, and adverse biocompatibility when used in vitro, limiting this research to stand-alone biomolecule sensing. Here we introduce a label-free, biocompatible, ZnO-based, 3D semiconductor quantum probe as a pathway for in vitro diagnosis of cancer. By reducing size of the probes to quantum scale, we observed a unique phenomenon of exponential increase in the SERS enhancement up to ~10 at nanomolar concentration. The quantum probes are decorated on a nano-dendrite platform functionalized for cell adhesion, proliferation, and label-free application. The quantum probes demonstrate discrimination of cancerous and non-cancerous cells along with biomolecular sensing of DNA, RNA, proteins and lipids in vitro. The limit of detection is up to a single-cell-level detection.