Nipple fluid for breast cancer diagnosis using the nanopore of Phi29 DNA-packaging motor

Detection of cancer in its early stage is a challenging task for oncologists. Inflammatory breast cancer has symptoms that are similar mastitis and can be mistaken for microbial infection. Currently, the differential diagnosis between mastitis and Inflammatory breast cancer nipple aspirate fluid (NAF) is difficult. Here, we report a label-free and amplification-free detection platform using an engineered nanopore the phi29 DNA-packaging motor with biomarker Galectin3 (GAL3), Thomsen-Friedenreich (TF) binding peptide as the probe fused at its terminus. The binding of the biomarker in NAF samples from breast cancer patients to the probe results in the connector's conformational change with a current blockage of 32 %. Utilization of dwell time, blockage ratio, and peak signature enable us to detect basal levels biomarkers from patient NAF samples at the single-molecule level. This platform will allow for breast cancers to be resolved at an early stage with accuracy and thoroughness.Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).