The detection of early-stage cancer offers patients the best chance of treatment and could help reduce cancer mortality rates. However, cancer cells or biomarkers are present in extremely small amounts in the early stages of cancer, requiring high-precision quantitative approaches with high sensitivity for accurate detection. With the advantages of simplicity, rapid response, reusability, and a low cost, aptamer-based electrochemical biosensors have received considerable attention as a promising approach for the clinical diagnosis of early-stage cancer. Various methods for developing highly sensitive aptasensors for the early detection of cancers in clinical samples are in progress. In this article, we discuss recent advances in the development of electrochemical aptasensors for the early detection of different cancer biomarkers and cells based on different detection strategies. Clinical applications of the aptasensors and future perspectives are also discussed.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a pleiotropic neuronal growth and survival factor that is indispensable in the brain, as well as in multiple other tissues and organs, including the cardiovascular system. In approximately 30% of the general population, BDNF harbors a nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphism that may be associated with cardiometabolic disorders, coronary artery disease, and Duchenne muscular dystrophy cardiomyopathy. We recently showed that transgenic mice with the human BDNF rs6265 polymorphism (Val66Met) exhibit altered cardiac function, and that cardiomyocytes isolated from these mice are also less contractile. To identify the underlying mechanisms involved, we compared cardiac function by echocardiography and performed deep sequencing of RNA extracted from whole hearts of all three genotypes (Val/Val, Val/Met, and Met/Met) of both male and female Val66Met mice. We found female-specific cardiac alterations in both heterozygous and homozygous carriers, including increased systolic (26.8%, p = 0.047) and diastolic diameters (14.9%, p = 0.022), increased systolic (57.9%, p = 0.039) and diastolic volumes (32.7%, p = 0.026), and increased stroke volume (25.9%, p = 0.033), with preserved ejection fraction and fractional shortening. Both males and females exhibited lower heart rates, but this change was more pronounced in female mice than in males. Consistent with phenotypic observations, the gene encoding SERCA2 (Atp2a2) was reduced in homozygous Met/Met mice but more profoundly in females compared to males. Enriched functions in females with the Met allele included cardiac hypertrophy in response to stress, with down-regulation of the gene encoding titin (Tcap) and upregulation of BNP (Nppb), in line with altered cardiac functional parameters. Homozygous male mice on the other hand exhibited an inflammatory profile characterized by interferon-γ (IFN-γ)-mediated Th1 immune responses. These results provide evidence for sex-based differences in how the BDNF polymorphism modifies cardiac physiology, including female-specific alterations of cardiac-specific transcripts and male-specific activation of inflammatory targets.

Neuregulin-1β (NRG-1β) is a growth and differentiation factor with pleiotropic systemic effects. Because NRG-1β has therapeutic potential for heart failure and has known growth effects in skeletal muscle, we hypothesized that it might affect heart failure-associated cachexia, a severe co-morbidity characterized by a loss of muscle mass. We therefore assessed NRG-1β’s effect on intercostal skeletal muscle gene expression in a swine model of heart failure using recombinant glial growth factor 2 (USAN-cimaglermin alfa), a version of NRG-1β that has been tested in humans with systolic heart failure. Animals received one of two intravenous doses (0.67 or 2 mg/kg) of NRG-1β bi-weekly for 4 weeks, beginning one week after infarct. Based on paired-end RNA sequencing, NRG-1β treatment altered the intercostal muscle gene expression of 581 transcripts, including genes required for myofiber growth, maintenance and survival, such as MYH3, MYHC, MYL6B, KY and HES1. Importantly, NRG-1β altered the directionality of at least 85 genes associated with cachexia, including myostatin, which negatively regulates myoblast differentiation by down-regulating MyoD expression. Consistent with this, MyoD was increased in NRG-1β-treated animals. In vitro experiments with myoblast cell lines confirmed that NRG-1β induces ERBB-dependent differentiation. These findings suggest a NRG-1β-mediated anti-atrophic, anti-cachexia effect that may provide additional benefits to this potential therapy in heart failure.

Carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) have attracted considerable attention for biomedical applications owing to their excellent biocompatibility, tunable optical properties, and low toxicity. In this study, we report a simple, rapid, and cost-effective one-pot bottom-up synthesis of fluorescent carbon nanoparticles using propanoic acid as a novel liquid carbon precursor. Unlike conventional approaches that often require high temperatures, lengthy reaction times, or complex procedures, the proposed method enables efficient nanoparticle synthesis under mild thermal conditions. The use of propanoic acid enabled carbonization under relatively mild conditions, yielding nanoparticles with excellent aqueous dispersibility. Following the synthesis of CNPs using propanoic acid as the carbon precursor, the nanoparticles were treated with ethylenediamine (EDA) as a nitrogen source and surface-passivating agent, yielding nitrogen-doped carbon nanoparticles (NCNPs). The resulting NCNPs exhibited approximately fourfold higher fluorescence intensity than the undoped CNPs. The NCNPs exhibited strong visible photoluminescence with a dominant emission band in the green spectral region (490–540 nm), which is advantageous for cellular imaging due to reduced background interference and improved imaging selectivity. Furthermore, the NCNPs demonstrated high aqueous solubility, cellular permeability, and excellent photostability under the in vitro imaging conditions investigated. The bioimaging capability of the NCNPs was evaluated using human lung fibroblasts and lung cancer cells. Confocal fluorescence microscopy revealed efficient cellular uptake and successful nuclear labeling without observable photobleaching and morphological alterations. These findings demonstrate the feasibility of using propanoic acid-derived NCNPs as fluorescent probes for cellular imaging and suggest their potential for future applications in bioimaging, biosensing, and related biomedical research. Further studies are warranted to evaluate their long-term biological safety and performance.