Aptamer-Based Graphene Field-Effect Transistor Biosensor for Cytokine Detection in Undiluted Physiological Media for Cervical Carcinoma Diagnosis

Personalized monitoring of disease biomarkers is of great interest in women’s health. However, existing approaches typically involve invasive inspection or bulky equipment, making them challenging to implement at home. Hence, we present a general strategy for label-free and specific detection of disease biomarkers in physiological media using an aptamer-based biosensor. The biosensor is a graphene field-effect transistor that involves immobilizing the aptamer and a biomolecule-permeable polyethylene glycol (PEG) layer on the graphene surface. The aptamer is capable of specifically binding with the target biomarker, thus inducing a change in the sensing responses. The PEG layer can effectively reduce the nonspecific adsorption of nontarget molecules in the solution, and increase the effective Debye screening length in the region directly adjacent to the graphene. In this work, studies of a biosensor with modification of the aptamer and PEG show that cervical carcinoma biomarkers such as tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin 6 can be sensitively and specifically detected in undiluted physiological media, with detection limits as low as 0.13 pM for TNF-a and 0.20 pM for IL-6. This work presents a significant method for the general application of the biosensor for disease diagnosis in women’s health.