Rapid Diagnosis of Multidrug Resistance In Leukemia by Electrochemical Biosensor Based on Carbon Nanotubes–Drug Supramolecular Interaction

The multidrug resistance (MDR) in leukemia is a major chemotherapy obstacle, rendering many currently available chemotherapeutic drugs ineffective. The aim of this study was to explore the new strategy to early diagnose the MDR by electrochemical biosensor based on carbon nanotubes–drug supramolecular interaction.

The carbon nanotubes modified glassy carbon electrodes (CNTs/GCE) as a sensor were directly immersed into the cells suspension of the sensitive leukemia cells K562 and/or its MDR cells K562/A02 to detect the response of the electrochemical probe of daunorubicin (DNR) residues after incubated with cells.

The fresh evidence from the electrochemical studies based on CNTs/GCE demonstrated that the homogeneous, label-free strategy could directly measure the function of cell membrane transporters in MDR cancer cells, identify the cancer cell phenotype (sensitive or MDR). The cathodic peak current showed good linear response to the changes of the fraction of MDR with a correlation coefficient of 0.995 when we further took the different ratios of the sensitive leukemia cells K562 and its MDR ones K562/A02 as the model of MDR levels to simulate the MDR occurrence in leukemia. Then, we can easily predict the MDR fraction based on the calibration curve of the cathodic peak current versus the fraction of MDR according to the obtained peak current.

These results indicated that the biosensing assay could provide a powerful tool for assessment of MDR in leukemia. The new electrochemical biosensor based on carbon nanotubes–drug supramolecular interaction could represent promising approach in the rapid diagnosis of MDR in leukemia.

No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.