Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy to study the biological activity of anticancer agent

Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) is a sensitive and selective spectroscopic technique for the detection and characterization of analytes, which are adsorbed on suitable metal surfaces. SERS as a strategy has been widely used in detecting target molecules, and the screening of drug activity is mainly to study the biological effects of drug combined with target, so a study on biological activity of anticancer drug based on SERS is a concern to some researchers. SERS combines the advantages of positive identification of molecules in situ, stand-alone detection, well-established instrumentation with high sensitivity, and its noninvasive detection. In this paper, we review on the application of SERS in studying anticancer agent from three aspects, such as studying the effects of anticancer agent on cancer cells, detection of anticancer agent in human plasma, and testing the interaction between anticancer agent and DNA or protein.