Hydrogel-based hybridization chain reaction (HCR) for detection of urinary exosomal miRNAs as a diagnostic tool of prostate cancer

Junbeom Kim, Ji Sung Shim, Bo Hoon Han, Hye Jin Kim, Jaesung Park, Il Joo Cho, Sung Gu Kang, Ji Yoon Kang, Ki Wan Bong, Nakwon Choi

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    62 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Although urinary exosomal microRNAs (miRNAs) have recently emerged as potential biomarkers, clinical applications are still limited due to their low concentration in small volumes of clinical samples. Therefore, the development of a non-invasive, specific diagnostic tool, along with profiling exosomal miRNA markers from urine, remains a significant challenge. Here, we present hydrogel-based hybridization chain reaction (HCR) for multiplex signal amplification to detect urinary exosomal miRNAs from human clinical samples. We succeeded in identifying small amounts (~amol) of exosomal miRNAs from 600 μL of urine with up to ~35-fold amplification and enhanced detection limits by over an order of magnitude for two miRNA biomarker candidates, hsa-miR-6090 and hsa-miR-3665. Furthermore, we proposed ratiometric analysis without requiring normalization to a reference miRNA and validated the clinical diagnostic potential toward differentiating prostate cancer patients from healthy controls. Our hydrogel-based HCR could serve as a new diagnostic platform for a non-invasive liquid biopsy before burdensome tissue biopsy of various diseases, including prostate cancer screening, complementing the PSA test.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number113504
    JournalBiosensors and Bioelectronics
    Volume192
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2021 Nov 15

    Bibliographical note

    Publisher Copyright:
    © 2021 The Authors

    Keywords

    • Diagnostics
    • Hydrogel microparticle
    • Prostate cancer
    • Urinary exosome
    • miRNA

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Biotechnology
    • Biophysics
    • Biomedical Engineering
    • Electrochemistry

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Hydrogel-based hybridization chain reaction (HCR) for detection of urinary exosomal miRNAs as a diagnostic tool of prostate cancer'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this