A simple aptamer-functionalized gold nanorods based biosensor for the sensitive detection of MCF-7 breast cancer cells.

Herein, we describe a novel approach for the rapid diagnosis of human breast carcinoma MCF-7 cells with a detection limit of 100 cells mL(-1). In our strategy, the MCF-7 cells are specially recognized by mucin 1 protein (MUC-1) aptamer-functionalized gold nanorods (GNRs) through specific interactions, whose signals are simply read out by its unique localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) spectra.