Highly Sensitive Plasmonic Detection of the Pancreatic Cancer Biomarker CA 19-9

Plasmonic gold (Au) nanotriangular arrays, functionalized with a near infrared (NIR) fluorophore-conjugated immunoassay to Carbohydrate Antigen 19-9 (CA 19-9), a pancreatic cancer biomarker, produce optically tunable substrates with two orders of magnitude fluorescence enhancement. Through nanoscale morphological control, the sensitivities of the plasmonic nanotriangular arrays are controllable, paving the way of such optical platforms for multiplexing. Here, we report a limit of detection (LOD) of 7.7 × 10^-7 U.mL^-1 for CA 19-9 by using such tunable Au nanotriangular arrays, a great improvement compared to commercially available CA 19-9 immunoassays. The linear dynamic range was from 1 × 10^-6 U.mL^-1 to 1 U.mL^-1, i.e. up to six orders of magnitude. Moreover, high specificity was demonstrated, together with successful validation in serum samples. Their superior tunable sensitivity, along with efforts to combine CA 19-9 with other biomarkers for improved accuracy, open up the possibility for multiplexed NIR-fluorescence enhancement microarrays, for early cancer diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring.