An ultrasensitive and point-of-care sensor for the telomerase activity detection

Xiaolong Chen; Yuanyi Deng; Gaihua Cao; Xinyi Liu; Tao Gu; Ruoyang Feng; Danqun Huo; Faliang Xu; Changjun Hou

doi:10.1016/j.aca.2020.11.037

An ultrasensitive and point-of-care sensor for the telomerase activity detection

Anal Chim Acta. 2021 Feb 15:1146:61-69. doi: 10.1016/j.aca.2020.11.037. Epub 2020 Nov 28.

Authors

Xiaolong Chen¹, Yuanyi Deng¹, Gaihua Cao¹, Xinyi Liu², Tao Gu², Ruoyang Feng², Danqun Huo³, Faliang Xu⁴, Changjun Hou⁵

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory for Biorheological Science and Technology of Ministry of Education, State and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Vascular Implants, Bioengineering College of Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, PR China.
² Hongshen Honors College, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, PR China.
³ Key Laboratory for Biorheological Science and Technology of Ministry of Education, State and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Vascular Implants, Bioengineering College of Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, PR China; Chongqing Key Laboratory of Bio-perception & Intelligent Information Processing, School of Microelectronics and Communication Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, PR China. Electronic address: huodq@cqu.edu.cn.
⁴ Treatment Center of Breast Diseases, Chongqing Cancer Institute and Hospital, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400030, PR China. Electronic address: flxu88@163.com.
⁵ Key Laboratory for Biorheological Science and Technology of Ministry of Education, State and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Vascular Implants, Bioengineering College of Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, PR China. Electronic address: houcj@cqu.edu.cn.

PMID: 33461720
DOI: 10.1016/j.aca.2020.11.037

Abstract

Telomerase owns great application potential in diagnosis, therapy, prognosis, and drug screening of cancers. Thus, the ultrasensitive and point-of-care detection of telomerase activity meets the clinical demands extremely. Here, a sensor based on telomerase extends activators to unlock the ssDNase activity of CRISPR/Cas12a was created for the first time to detect the telomerase activity. Based on the fluorescence or CRISPR/Cas12a-based lateral flow assay, we achieve the ultrasensitive and point-of-care detection of telomerase activity in MCF-7 cells low to 57 cells·mL^-1 and 5.7 × 10² cells·mL^-1 in about 1 h, respectively. Besides, the detection of telomerase activity in different subtype breast cancer cells indicates that the proposed sensor possesses potential in the classification of breast cancer cell subtypes.

Keywords: Breast cancer; CRSPR/Cas12a; Point-of-care testing; Telomerase.

MeSH terms

Fluorescence
Point-of-Care Systems
Telomerase* / metabolism

Substances

Telomerase