Label-free saliva screening platform using M13 bacteriophage-based 3D plasmonic structures for MRONJ diagnosis

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Nanotechnology
• Oral Medicine

Background:

• Medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaw (MRONJ) is a serious complication of antiresorptive/antiangiogenic drugs.
• Current diagnostic methods struggle with early detection of small lesions (<10 mm).
• Non-invasive diagnostic tools are needed for timely MRONJ intervention.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a label-free saliva screening method for MRONJ diagnosis.
• To utilize M13 bacteriophage-based plasmonic structures for enhanced Raman spectroscopy.
• To assess the diagnostic performance of the proposed saliva-based approach.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of a 3D plasmonic structure using M13 bacteriophage and gold nanoparticles.
• Raman spectroscopy analysis of saliva metabolites from MRONJ patients and controls.
• Data preprocessing including outlier filtering and classification using a multi-layer perceptron model.

Main Results:

• The M13 bacteriophage structure enhanced Raman signal intensity by increasing hotspot density.
• The optimized model achieved 84.6% specificity and 100.0% sensitivity.
• An area under the curve (AUC) of 0.92 indicated high diagnostic accuracy.

Conclusions:

• A saliva-based, non-invasive screening strategy for MRONJ is feasible.
• This approach demonstrates potential for early MRONJ detection.
• Further studies with larger datasets are warranted to validate and expand diagnostic applications.