Endodontic treatment of immature permanent teeth with necrotic pulp poses several clinical challenges and is one of the most demanding interventions in endodontics. Recently, with new discoveries in the field of tissue engineering, novel treatment protocols have been established. The most promising treatment modality is revascularization, whose integral part is the exposure of collagen matrix and embedded growth factors. However, optimization of the treatment protocol requires a development of analytical procedures able to analyze growth factors directly on the sample surface. In this work, method based on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) was developed to investigate the influence of the time of the medical treatment using EDTA on exposure and accessibility of the growth factors, namely TGF-ß1, BMP-2, and bFGF on the dentine surface. The nanotags, which consist of magnetic FeO@Ag nanocomposite covalently functionalized by tagged antibodies (anti-TGF-ß1-Cy3, anti-BMP-2-Cy5, and anti-bFGF-Cy7), were employed as a SERS substrate. Each antibody was coupled with a unique label allowing us to perform a parallel analysis of all three growth factors within one analytical run. Developed methodology presents an interesting alternative to a fluorescence microscopy and in contrary allows evaluating a chemical composition and thus minimizing possible false-positive results. Graphical abstract.
Prostate cancer is one of the compelling types of cancer diagnosed in men. Development of screening analytical methods, which provide fast and reliable results is, thus, demanding. Currently applied methods are usually based on the determination of serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA), where several limitations were identified. However, scientific reports have shown a direct correlation between the percentage of free PSA and prostate volume, and indirect correlation between the unfavorable course of the disease of prostate cancer and the percentage of free PSA in men with elevated PSA levels. Parallel analysis of PSA and free PSA presents an interesting alternative. Here, we present a new analytical method for a parallel analysis of PSA and free PSA in a whole human blood based on MA-SERS. The method is based on magnetic Fe3O4@Ag nanocomposite functionalized using anti-PSA. The method can distinguish between levels of PSA and free PSA within a single analytical run with limits of detection of 0.62 ng/ml for PSA and 0.49 ng/ml for free PSA, respectively.
As a novel and potentially strong analytical technique, graphene-enhanced Raman scattering (GERS) has attracted since its first discovery in 2010 increasing attention among many scientists in recent years. GERS combines...
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