Thermally Engineered Ferric Yolk-Shells for Vaginal Secretion Based Cervical Cancer Screening

Engineering of materials is crucial for the advanced detection of bio-molecules, particularly in laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (LDI-MS). However, effective screening with enhanced LDI performance remains challenging due to the lack of engineered substrate materials. Herein, thermally engineered ferric yolk-shells are designed for enhanced metabolic screening of cervical cancer (CC) using vaginal secretion. A facile thermal engineering strategy is developed to prepare amorphous ferric yolk-shells with integrated properties. Notably, the amorphous mesoporous yolk-shells offer signal amplification up to orders of magnitude in LDI-MS for standard metabolites and diverse bio-samples. High-performance CC screening (including identification of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL), and CC) is achieved, with the areas under the curve of 0.842–0.963. Finally, a metabolic panel for CC screening, covering the stages of HPV, HSIL, and CC, is established. This work elucidates the LDI-MS mechanism for enhanced metabolic detection and highlights potential applications in cancer screening.