Nanoconstructs as a versatile tool for detection and diagnosis of Alzheimer biomarkers

Abstract

The current review focuses towards the advancements made in the past decade in the field of nanotechnology for the early Alzheimer’s disease (AD) diagnosis. This review includes the application of nanomaterials and nanosensors for the early detection of the main AD biomarkers (amyloid beta, phosphorylated tau, apolipoprotein E4 allele or APOE4, microRNAs, cholesterol, hydrogen peroxide etc) in biological fluids, to detect the biomarkers at a very low concentration ranging in pico, femto and even atto molar concentrations. The field of drug development has always aimed and is constantly working on developing disease modifying drugs, but these drugs will only succeed when given in the early disease stages. Thus, developing efficient diagnostic tools is of vital importance. Various nanomaterials such as liposomes; dendrimers; polymeric nanoparticles; coordination polymers; inorganic nanoparticles such as silica, manganese oxide, zinc oxide, iron oxide, super paramagnetic iron oxides; quantum dots, silver nanoparticles, gold nanoparticles, and carbon based nanostructures (carbon nanotubes, graphene oxide, nanofibres, nanodiamonds, carbon dots); Up-conversion nanoparticles; 2D nanomaterials; and radioactive nanoprobes have been used in constructing and improving efficiency of nano-sensors for AD biosensing at an early stage of diagnosis.

Application of Quantum Dots in Bio-Sensing, Bio-Imaging, Drug Delivery, Anti-Bacterial Activity, Photo-Thermal, Photo-Dynamic Therapy, and Optoelectronic Devices

“…Water-soluble quantum dots (QDs) can be conjugated with various biological molecules like peptides, proteins, aptamers, drugs, and antibodies. The benefits of QD-based biomolecule conjugation help to deal with several immunohistochemistry, labeling and imaging the single-molecule and tracks that are well explored in numerous studies [31][32][33]. The exclusive wavelength tunable properties of QDs offer wide prospects for designing systems for numerous analyses by multi-colored imaging for the concurrent recognition of numerous targets.…”

Functionalization strategies of polymeric nanoparticles for drug delivery in Alzheimer’s disease: Current trends and future perspectives

“…Indeed, the literature proposes several strategies to use polymer chains as surface functionalization of inorganic nanomaterials, such as metal NPs, radionuclides and QDs. The polymer coating is generally addressed by choosing among a wide range of natural and synthetic macromolecules, such as dextran, chitosan, cyclodextrin, PEG, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), polydopamine (PDA), polysaccharides, PEI, PVP, and PAMAM ( Azria et al, 2017 ; Wu et al, 2020 ; Gopalan et al, 2021 ). The polymer conjugation occurs via electrostatic interactions, adsorption mechanism or orthogonal grafting between complementary chemical reactive groups.…”

Applications of Carbon Dots for the Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease

“…CDs can be used to fabricate tools to monitor biomarkers for predicting AD risk or monitoring the course of the disease. [116][117][118][119] This is a rapidly evolving research area, but germane to topics we have previously discussed, CDs or GQDs have been used to develop methods for CSF monitoring of Aβ monomers 120 or AChE. 121 In addition to acting as a tool to inhibit AchE itself, CDs can also serve as a monitoring and sensing platform based on the acetylcholine hypothesis.…”