Aptamer-based electrochemical approaches to meet some of the challenges in the fight against cancer
Miguel Aller Pellitero, Noemí de‐los‐Santos‐Álvarez, María Jesús Lobo‐Castañón
Abstract
The development of simple, rapid, and cost-effective electrochemical strategies for the detection of cancer biomarkers would improve the ways we have to find cancer at the earliest stages or to monitor its treatment and recurrences, thus contributing to control the global cancer burden. Ongoing advances in the selection of aptamers recognizing different cancer biomarkers have greatly enhanced our ability to design these electroanalytical platforms. Herein, we give an overview of the developments in aptamer-based electrochemical assays through the past two years, mainly focusing in simple and highly sensitive approaches such as nanopore-sensing, label-free and signal amplification systems. All of them could contribute to overcome two important challenges in the fight against cancer: understand cancer risk and prognosis by fostering new ways to detect it, and the availability of analytical platforms for integrating these biomolecular data with health systems.