Gold Island-Enhanced Multiplex Quantum Dots Fluorescent System for Biomedical Analysis of Circulating Tumor Nucleic Acids

Abstract Background: Circulating tumor nucleic acids (CTNAs) have been employed as the potential marker for tumor diagnosis and management, which are highly related to the tumorigenesis, progression and metastasis processes. Therefore, it is of significance to develop a highly-sensitive and reliable methods for detection of CTNAs, especially the multiplex point mutation detection of blood-derived CTNAs. Results: Herein, a gold island-enhanced multiplex quantum dots (QDs) fluorescent platform was constructed for highly-sensitive detection of CTNAs in serum. The gold island-enhanced multiplex fluorescent strategy was designed as the highly-efficient signal giving-out mode which could amplify the fluorescence of QDs, realized a homogeneous nano-platform for the enrichment, multiplex detection and point mutations monitoring of CTNAs with the principle of base-stacking. A high sensitivity of 10 amol and desirable specificity were achieved, and the performance index for analysis of clinical CTNAs samples indicated that the gold island-enhanced multiplex QDs fluorescent strategy could realize multiplex point mutations detection of CTNAs in complex blood samples. Conclusions: Hence, this platform achieved high detection rate in clinical samples that suitably met the clinical-requirements for multiplex detection and point mutations monitoring of CTNAs, and thus has the potential to serve as the tumor liquid biopsy strategy based on CTNAs.