Optical detection based spot test on electrospun nanofibers for glioblastoma cells

Paper-based diagnosis is enabled to be used in many applications in global health due to its low cost and simplicity of operation. Electrospun nanofibers (ESNFs) are useful platforms to prepare paper-based diagnostics. Herein, bead-free ESNFs were formed by electrospinning using polystyrene (PS) and poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG) polymers as a paper-based substrate. PS:PEG ESNFs were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), identification of swelling behavior, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. Synthesized gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) were used as a colorimetric probe and GMT8 aptamer was conjugated on the surface of AuNPs. AuNP and AuNP-GMT8 were characterized by dynamic light scattering (DLS), UV-Visible spectrometry, and X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The interaction of AuNP-GMT8 bioconjugates with glioblastoma cells was examined. The colored spots for the mixture of glioblastoma (U87-MG) cells and AuNP-GMT8 were optically monitored both in the microplate wells and on the PS:PEG ESNFs. The linear range of colorimetric analysis on PS:PEG ESNFs was determined to be between 10¹-10⁶ U87-MG cells/mL by smartphone using RGB color analysis.