Silver chalcogenide loaded V2CTx MXene-molecularly imprinted polymer-based novel ratiometric sensor for the early predictive cancer marker: L-Fucose

Fucosylated-haptoglobin (Hpt) and urinary free L-fucose (FU) are primary markers in the progression of tumor and metastasis-related to cancer of the liver (Hepatocellular carcinoma), pancreatic, prostate, colon and oral cancer. The p-aminobenzoic acid (PABA)-FU containing molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) cavities were accessed to detect FU molecules with signal amplifying layer of novel silver selenide (Ag2Se) doped vanadium carbide (V2CTx) MXene. The selection of suitable monomers through theoretical calculations and optimization of factors involved in the fabrication of a MIP-based sensor via Taguchi orthogonal array (5 × 5) was abundant in improvising the sensor performance. Ratiometry of the oxidation response of FU (IFU) and Ag2Se@V2CTx (IM) played a vital role in eliminating the interference of serum proteins which includes Hpt (undigested), thus sample pretreatment is not required. The extraordinary selectivity with remarkable LOD (1.85 μM) was achieved for FU detection in 100 mM PBS (pH = 6.0) and structurally mimicking interferents failed to show an impactful response against the sensor. Urinary-free FU (spiked) and serum FU (unspiked and spiked) were analyzed in which the LOD of urinary-free FU was as low as 2.22 μM. In addition, normal human serum showed 440.2 μM of FU and the %recovery of FU-spiked samples was between 98.0 and 101.5%.