A simple and low-cost screen printed electrode for hepatocellular carcinoma methylation detection

There is a great demand for robust diagnostic and prognostic approaches for Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC). DNA methylation, a common epigenetic modification, has been found in many promoter regions of tumor suppressor genes. Hypermethylation of these gene promoters will repress the gene transcription and lead to the occurrence of cancers. The abnormal methyation level of the p16 gene promoter could be a promising marker for the detection of HCC. The adsorption affinities between different DNA bases and AuNPs are not the same. After bisulfite treatment and asymmetric PCR, methylation and unmethylation sequences can be changed into guanine-enriched and adenine-enriched sequences, respectively. A home-made gold nanoparticle modified screen printed carbon electrode (AuNP-SPCE) was employed to distinguish the adsorption affinities between guanine-enriched and adenine-enriched sequences, which could be used to analyze the level of DNA methylation. Several key experimental factors were investigated and optimized. The results had shown that the optimal AuNP electrodeposition time was 100 s and 15 min of adsorption could distinguish guanine-enriched and adenine-enriched sequences with a concentration of 100 nM at 25 °C. The detection limit of our AuNP-SPCE was 1.1 ng, and the assay had a good sensitivity of 10% methylation change and was able to distinguish only one methylated CpG site. What's more, the RSD over three assays with a disposable AuNP-SPCE was ≤7.2%. The assay was applied to real samples including cell lines and clinical tissues. Compared with normal hepatic cell lines and normal tissues, lower signals of HCC cell lines and cancer tissues were observed, respectively. It had shown a good discrimination of the abnormal methylation level of the p16 gene promoter.