SiO 2 @Au nanoshell-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry for coronary heart disease diagnosis.

Cardiovascular diseases have threatened human health, amongst which coronary heart disease (CHD) is the third most common cause of death. CHD is considered to be a metabolic disease; however, there is little research on the CHD metabolism. Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) has enabled the development of a suitable nanomaterial that can be used to obtain considerable high-quality metabolic information without complex pretreatment of biological fluid samples. This study combines SiO@Au nanoshells with minute plasma to obtain metabolic fingerprints of CHD. The thickness of the SiO@Au shell was also optimized to maximize the laser desorption/ionization effect. The results demonstrated 84% sensitivity at 85% specificity for distinguishing CHD patients from controls in the validation cohort.