School of Natural Sciences, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia.
Nanoscale. 2022 Oct 27;14(41):15242-15268. doi: 10.1039/d2nr03005e.
Cells and their derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) or exosomes contain unique molecular signatures that could be used as biomarkers for the detection of severe diseases such as cancer, as well as monitoring the treatment response. Revealing these molecular signatures requires developing non-invasive ultrasensitive tools to enable single molecule/cell-level detection using a small volume of sample with low signal-to-noise ratio background and multiplex capability. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) can address the current limitations in studying cells and EVs through two main mechanisms: plasmon-enhanced electric field (the so-called electromagnetic mechanism (EM)), and chemical mechanism (CM). In this review, we first highlight these two SERS mechanisms and then discuss the nanomaterials that have been used to develop SERS biosensors based on each of the aforementioned mechanisms as well as the combination of these two mechanisms in order to take advantage of the synergic effect between electromagnetic enhancement and chemical enhancement. Then, we review the recent advances in designing label-aided and label-free SERS biosensors in both colloidal and planar systems to investigate the surface biomarkers on cancer cells and their derived EVs. Finally, we discuss perspectives of emerging SERS biosensors in future biomedical applications. We believe this review article will thus appeal to researchers in the field of nanobiotechnology including material sciences, biosensors, and biomedical fields.
细胞及其衍生的细胞外囊泡 (EVs) 或外泌体包含独特的分子特征，可作为癌症等严重疾病检测的生物标志物，以及监测治疗反应。揭示这些分子特征需要开发非侵入性的超灵敏工具，以利用小体积的样本、低信噪比背景和多重检测能力，实现单分子/细胞级别的检测。表面增强拉曼散射 (SERS) 可以通过两种主要机制解决当前研究细胞和 EVs 的局限性：等离子体增强电场（所谓的电磁机制 (EM)）和化学机制 (CM)。在这篇综述中，我们首先强调了这两种 SERS 机制，然后讨论了已经用于开发基于上述每种机制的 SERS 生物传感器的纳米材料，以及这两种机制的组合，以便利用电磁增强和化学增强之间的协同效应。然后，我们回顾了在胶体和平面系统中设计基于标记和无标记 SERS 生物传感器的最新进展，以研究癌细胞及其衍生的 EVs 表面的生物标志物。最后，我们讨论了新兴 SERS 生物传感器在未来生物医学应用中的前景。我们相信，这篇综述文章将吸引纳米生物技术领域的研究人员，包括材料科学、生物传感器和生物医学领域的研究人员。
