Electrochemical DNA biosensor coupled to LAMP reaction for early diagnostics of cervical precancerous lesions

Electrochemical (EC) biosensors are potentially useful tools for detection of DNA and RNA cancer biomarkers. Gold screen-printed electrodes (AuSPEs) are especially popular due to their easy manufacturing and surface modifications, making them useful candidates in biosensor fabrication. On the other hand, biosensors based on AuSPEs are still not often applied to clinical samples from cancer patients or compared with routine laboratory methods. Therefore, we tried to address these challenges by developing AuSPE-based biosensor for detection of DNA from two highly oncogenic types of human papillomavirus (HPV), HPV16 and HPV18, that cause cervical cancer in women. We coupled loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) of HPV DNA from fifteen clinical samples, with the capture of amplified products at the surface of the AuSPE and with final EC detection in a multielectrode format. We show excellent selectivity of designed primers and probes by comparing HPV-positive and HPV-negative cancer cell lines, and most importantly, very good sensitivity and specificity of the proposed biosensor for detection of clinical samples when compared to the PCR used as a gold standard.