Double-Tetrahedral DNA Probe Functionalized Ag Nanorod Biointerface for Effective Capture, Highly Sensitive Detection, and Nondestructive Release of Circulating Tumor Cells

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are indicative of tumorigenesis, metastasis, and recurrence; however, it is still a great challenge to efficiently analyze the extremely rare CTCs in peripheral blood. Herein, a novel nanobiointerface integrating high affinities of arrayed silver nanorods (Ag NRs) and double-tetrahedral DNA (DTDN) probes by a clever strategy is proposed for the efficient capture, highly sensitive detection, and non-destructive release of CTCs. Under the optimal conditions, the DTDN-probe-functionalized Ag NRs nanobiointerface can capture 90.2% of SGC-7901 cells in PBS, and the capture efficiency is 2.8 times and 50 times those of a DTDN-probe-functionalized Ag film and unfunctionalized Ag NRs, respectively, benefiting from the nanorough interface of the Ag NRs array and multivalent recognition of the DTDN probe. In addition, 93.4% of cells was released via Zn2+-assisted DNAzyme cleavage, and the viability of the postreleased CTCs is about 98.0%. The potential practicality of the nanobiointerface for testing CTCs in blood was further characterized by spiking SGC-7901 cells in leukocytes collected from human blood, and the results show that 83.8% capture efficiency, 91.2% release efficiency, and single-cell detection limit were achieved, which indicates that the nanobiointerface has great potential in clinical applications for reliable CTC analyses.

Automated summary

This study proposes a novel nanobiointerface that integrates specific nanomaterials and DNA probes for the efficient capture, sensitive detection, and non-destructive release of circulating tumor cells (CTCs). The experimental results demonstrate that this nanobiointerface has great potential for testing and analyzing CTCs in blood.