Life Sciences & Biotechnology
Title : | On-Chip Electrochemiluminescence based Quantification of Extracellular miRNA Isolated from Cancer Spheroids |
Area of research : | Life Sciences & Biotechnology |
Principal Investigator : | Dr. Mohana Marimuthu, Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan University, Tamil Nadu |
Timeline Start Year : | 2022 |
Timeline End Year : | 2025 |
Contact info : | mohana.pharma@gmail.com |
Details
Executive Summary : | Drug resistance is one of the leading problems in treating cancer patients. Chemoresistance in patients could be intrinsic or induced upon multiple chemotherapy cycles. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) is one the important components of extracellular vesicles (EV) which functions in cell-cell communication through the transfer of its components especially miRNA. miRNAs are playing an increasingly important role in cancer therapy resistance. MiRNAs are tiny non-coding RNAs that have evolved to act as regulators of gene expression by silencing mRNA targets. A comprehensive understanding of the roles of miRNAs in drug resistance will aid in the development of more effective techniques to regulate them, and will eventually pave the way for better translation of miRNAs into clinics, allowing them to become a promising cancer therapeutic approach. Consequently, EVs and the miRNA they contain are potential candidates as circulating biomarkers in the early stages of disease detection. Traditional EV-miRNA analysis and quantification approaches, on the other hand, are inefficient. Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), DNA microarray, Northern blot techniques, and deep sequencing are the most used methods for quantifying and identifying miRNAs. They have strong sensitivity and specificity in general, but the methods are complicated and need a high degree of technology, which necessitates expensive equipment and supplies, qualified workers for the assay, and is time consuming. As a result, the development of additional more efficient and less expensive emerging techniques for cancer diagnosis and treatment is critical. Based on direct detection methods electrochemiluminescence (ECL) assays, on the other hand, are noted for having low background noise and great sensitivity, even at extremely low sample concentrations. The development of ECL substrates and device components for portable instrumentation is relatively inexpensive and may be combined with contemporary devices. Recent advancements in microfluidic-based technology have made it possible to extract EVs in a practical and repeatable manner. While the use of small sample volumes has made microfluidic systems attractive for cancer diagnosis, an integrated platform for the culture of three-dimensional (3D) spheroid as bio-mimetic cancer tissue, EV-miRNA extraction and highly sensitive quantification is needed. Therefore, in this work, for the first time, it is proposed to integrate microfluidic setup with ECL platform suitable for spheroid synthesis and quantification of miRNA. It is envisaged that the proposed assay protocol would provide new horizon in the onco- screening useful for early diagnosis and rational therapeutics. |
Total Budget (INR): | 18,30,000 |
Organizations involved