Gold nanoprobes-based resonance Rayleigh scattering assay platform: Sensitive cytosensing of breast cancer cells and facile monitoring of folate receptor expression.

A rapid, facile assay for sensitive cytosensing of breast cancer cells should help to guide potential medical evaluation for breast cancer. Here, we report development of novel resonance Rayleigh scattering (RRS) cytosensor for cell recognitions and folate (FA) receptor expression analyses on living cells. Using FA-conjugated gold nanoparticles (FA-AuNPs) as nanoprobes, the constructed nanoprobes-assembled recognition interface could increase the binding capacity for cell recognition, amplify Au-aggregates-enhanced RRS signal, and then enhance the sensitivity for membrane antibody assay. FA-AuNPs-based RRS measurements enabled a distinct 34-times-enhancement in RRS intensities after incubation with human breast cancer cells, compared with normal cells. Receptor-targeted cytosensor was used to quantitatively detect human breast cancer MCF-7, liver cancer HepG2 and normal cells, which expressing different amount of FA receptor, respectively. The detection limit for MCF-7 cells was 12 cells/mL with good selectivity and reproducibility. Furthermore, the proposed cytosensor allowed for dynamic evaluation of FA receptor expression on different living cells after dihydroartemisinin stimulus. This assay platform shows the good potential for clinical diagnostics and antibody-targeted drug screening.