Background and Purpose: The humoral immune response in
cancer patients can be used for early detection of the disease.
Autoantibodies raised against
tumor-associated
antigens (TAAs) are promising clinical
biomarkers for reliable
cancer diagnosis, prognosis, and
therapy monitoring. In this study, an electrochemical disposable multiplexed immunosensing platform able to integrate difficult- and easy-to-express
colorectal cancer (CRC) TAAs is reported for the sensitive determination of eight CRC-specific
autoantibodies. Methods: The electrochemical immunosensing approach involves the use of magnetic microcarriers (MBs) as solid supports modified with covalently immobilized
HaloTag fusion
proteins for the selective capture of specific
autoantibodies. After magnetic capture of the modified MBs onto screen-printed
carbon working
electrodes, the amperometric responses measured using the
hydroquinone (HQ)/H2O2 system were related to the levels of
autoantibodies in plasma. Results: The biosensing platform was applied to the analysis of
autoantibodies against 8 TAAs described for the first time in this work in plasma samples from healthy asymptomatic individuals (n=3), and patients with high-risk of developing CRC (n=3), and from patients already diagnosed with colorectal (n=3), lung (n=2) or breast (n=2)
cancer. The developed bioplatform demonstrated an improved discrimination between CRC patients and controls (asymptomatic healthy individuals and breast and
lung cancer patients) compared to an ELISA-like luminescence test. Conclusions: The proposed methodology uses a just-in-time produced
protein in a simpler protocol, with low sample volume, and involves cost-effective instrumentation, which could be used in a high-throughput manner for reliable population screening to facilitate the detection of early CRC patients at affordable cost.