The utility of a high-throughput scanning biosensor in the detection of the pancreatic cancer marker ULBP2.

In this study, a novel high-throughput biosensor based on metal-enhanced fluorescence technique and harmonic intensity-modulated fluorescence technique was developed and demonstrated to be highly sensitive for the detection of a pancreatic cancer marker, UL16-binding protein 2 (ULBP2), in diluted serum. Experimentally, the biosensor is able to detect ULBP2 at 16-18 pg/mL in 1% BSA-PBS and in 10-fold-diluted human serum. Compared with the limit of detection (LOD) of the conventional enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method, the LOD of the proposed biosensor for ULBP2 is significantly improved by 100-fold under the same conditions. In addition, the proposed method uses two identical polyclonal antibodies for the sandwich immunoassay, simplifying the experiment in terms of the reagents needed. Consequently, this biosensor is a cost-effective tool for clinical diagnosis. We believe that the proposed high-throughput biosensor has great potential to become a clinical diagnostic tool for the detection of a pancreatic cancer marker in the near future.