Surface enhanced Raman detection of the colon cancer biomarker cytidine by using magnetized nanoparticles of the type Fe3O4/Au/Ag.

Cytidine is regarded as an early marker of colon cancer. The authors describe a surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) technique to detect trace levels of cytidine in urine. The Raman band at 784 cm-1 can be acquired best. Compared to earlier methods, an improvement in detection sensitivity by a factor of 6.2 × 105 is achieved by using a magnetically induced method in which cytidine is captured in the vicinity of the SERS hot spots of the type Fe3O4/Au/Ag. Cytidine can be quantified at 1 nM levels by this method which is simple and reliable. Graphical Abstract Clusters consisting of magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles, gold nanoparticles and silver nanoparticles were prepared and used in a SERS based method for detection of cytidine in urine by using magnetic improvement. The lowest detectable concentration of cytidine are at the nM level.