Preparation of Electrochemical Cytosensor for Sensitive Detection of HeLa Cells Based on Self-Assembled Monolayer

It is highly desirable to develop simple and rapid method to detect cancer cells. In this case, a simple method for electrochemical detecting cell numbers based cytosensor was investigated. Thioctic acid (TA) monolayer, assembled on a high conductive Au/ITO substrate to stable immobilized of Arg-Gly-Asp-Ser tetrapeptide (RGDS) by chemical bonding, was first used for construction of electrochemical cytosensor. Moreover the cytotoxicity assay also showed no cytotoxicity of TA modified electrode . The proposed cytosensor showed good performance for detection of cancer cells with a broad detection range of 3.0   ×   10 2 to 1.0   ×   10 7 cells/mL, and a low detection limit of 300 cells/mL. The results were obtained that can be attributed to the combination of the advantages of high conductive and biocompatible property of the modified electrode we suggested. This work demonstrated a simple strategy to prepare an electrochemical cytosensor with the property of low cost, good biocompatible, broad detection range, low detection limit, good repeatability which may have potential large-scale application for improving cancer diagnosis and treatment.