Beffara, F., Perumal, J., Puteri Mahyuddin, A., Choolani, M., Khan, S. A., Auguste, J., … Olivo, M. (2019). Development of highly reliable SERS‐active photonic crystal fiber probe and its application in the detection of ovarian cancer biomarker in cyst fluid. Journal of Biophotonics, 13(3). doi:10.1002/jbio.201960120
Abstract:
Conventionally Surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is realized by adsorbing analytes onto nano‐roughened planar substrate coated with noble metals (silver or gold) or their colloidal nanoparticles (NPs). Nanoscale irregularities in such substrates/NPs could lead to SERS sensors with poor reproducibility and repeatability. Herein, we demonstrate a suspended core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) based SERS sensor with extremely high reproducibility and repeatability in measurement with a relative SD of only 1.5% and 4.6%, respectively, which makes it more reliable than any existing SERS sensor platforms. In addition, our platform could improve the detection sensitivity owing to the increased interaction area between the guided light and the analyte, which is incorporated into the holes that runs along the length of the PCF. Numerical calculation established the significance of the interplay between light coupling efficiency and evanescent field distribution, which could eventually determine the sensitivity and reliability of the developed SERS active‐PCF sensor. As a proof of concept, using this sensor, we demonstrated the detection of haptoglobin, a biomarker for ovarian cancer, contained within the ovarian cyst fluid, which facilitated in differentiating the stages of cancer. We envision that with necessary refinements, this platform could potentially be translated as a next‐generation highly sensitive SERS‐active opto‐fluidic biopsy needle for the detection of biomarkers in body fluids.
License type:
Publisher Copyright
Funding Info:
This research is supported by core funding from: Singapore Bioimaging Consortium
Grant Reference no. : NA
supported by the CNRS, France - PICS project, “Bio-sensing platforms based on specialty optical fibers as practical clinical diagnostic tools”
Description:
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Beffara, F., Perumal, J., Puteri Mahyuddin, A., Choolani, M., Khan, S. A., Auguste, J., … Olivo, M. (2019). Development of highly reliable SERS‐active photonic crystal fiber probe and its application in the detection of ovarian cancer biomarker in cyst fluid. Journal of Biophotonics, 13(3). doi:10.1002/jbio.201960120, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/jbio.201960120. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions