Nano-biosensors to detect beta-amyloid for Alzheimer's disease management

Beta-amyloid (beta-A) peptides are potential biomarkers to monitor Alzheimer's diseases (AD) for diagnostic purposes. Increased beta-A level is neurotoxic and induces oxidative stress in brain resulting in neurodegeneration and causes dementia. As of now, no sensitive and inexpensive method is available for beta-A detection under physiological and pathological conditions. Although, available methods such as neuroimaging, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) detect beta-A, but they are not yet extended at point-of-care (POC) due to sophisticated equipments, need of high expertize, complicated operations, and challenge of low detection limit. Recently, beta-A antibody based electrochemical immuno-sensing approach has been explored to detect beta-A at pM levels within 30-40 min compared to 6-8 h of ELISA test. The introduction of nano-enabling electrochemical sensing technology could enable rapid detection of beta-A at POC and may facilitate fast personalized health care delivery. This review explores recent advancements in nano-enabling electrochemical beta-A sensing technologies towards POC application to AD management. These analytical tools can serve as an analytical tool for AD management program to obtain bio-informatics needed to optimize therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases diagnosis management. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.