Potentials of MicroRNA in Early Detection of Ovarian Cancer by Analytical Electrical Biosensors

Abstract

The importance of nanotechnology in medical applications especially with biomedical sensing devices is undoubted. Several medical diagnostics have been developed by taking the advantage of nanomaterials, especially with electrical biosensors. Biosensors have been predominantly used for the quantification of different clinical biomarkers toward detection, screening, and follow-up the treatment. At present, ovarian cancer is one of the severe complications that cannot be identified until it becomes most dangerous as the advanced stage. Based on the American Cancer Society, 20% of cases involved in the detection of ovarian cancer are diagnosed at an early stage and 80% diagnosed at the later stages. The patient just has a common digestive problem and stomach ache as early symptoms and people used to ignore these symptoms. Micro ribonucleic acid (miRNA) is classified as small non-coding RNAs, their expressions change due to the association of cancer development and progression. This article reviews and discusses on the currently available strategies for the early detection of ovarian cancers using miRNA as a biomarker associated with electrical biosensors. A unique miRNA-based biomarker detections are specially highlighted with biosensor platforms to diagnose ovarian cancer.

Keywords:

• Analytical sensor
• micro RNA
• nanotechnology
• nucleic acid complementation
• ovarian cancer

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) under Grant Nos. RACER/1/2019/TK04/UNIMAP//2 and the author would like to thank all staff members of the Institute of Nanoelectronic Engineering in Universiti Malaysia Perlis for their technical advice.