Facile and cost-effective liver cancer diagnosis by water-gated organic field-effect transistors.

The rise of mortality rate caused by hepatocellular carcinoma accelerates requirements of biosensors for early liver cancer diagnosis and treatment to improve the clinical prognosis and prolong the survival of patients. However, how to realize label-free, low-cost, easy and fast-detection is the major challenge in the design of biosensors. Water-gated organic field-effect transistors efficiently bridge the gap between semiconductor devices and biological systems, leading to an organic device suitable for health or body signal monitoring. Herein, a kind of high-performance water-gated organic field-effect transistor is developed through the optimization process. This method provides a label-free general sensing platform for the determination of liver cancer biomarker alpha-fetoprotein in 45 minutes, much quicker than traditional methods such as the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for several hours. In addition, with the detection limit lower than the cut-off value as well as the ability to achieve quantitative detection, this novel water-gated organic field-effect transistor enables a much broader analysis of other biomarkers in cancer patient samples.

Consideration of interaction between nanoparticles and food components for the safety assessment of nanoparticles following oral exposure: A review.

Nanoparticles (NPs) are increasingly used in food, and the toxicity of NPs following oral exposure should be carefully assessed to ensure the safety. Indeed, a number of studies have shown that oral exposure to NPs, especially solid NPs, may induce toxicological responses both in vivo and in vitro. However, most of the toxicological studies only used NPs for oral exposure, and the potential interaction between NPs and food components in real life was ignored. In this review, we summarized the relevant studies and suggested that the interaction between NPs and food components may exist by that 1) NPs directly affect nutrients absorption through disruption of microvilli or alteration in expression of nutrient transporter genes; 2) food components directly affect NP absorption through physico-chemical modification; 3) the presence of food components affect oxidative stress induced by NPs. All of these interactions may eventually enhance or reduce the toxicological responses induced by NPs following oral exposure. Studies only using NPs for oral exposure may therefore lead to misinterpretation and underestimation/overestimation of toxicity of NPs, and it is necessary to assess the synergistic effects of NPs in a complex system when considering the safety of NPs used in food.