Recent advances in electrochemical MOF-based aptasensors for cancer biomarker detection: A review

Cancer is one of the most life-threatening diseases and has a high fatality rate. Thus, developing a rapid and accurate early screening method with excellent selectivity and sensitivity is highly important for cancer diagnosis to increase the survival rate of patients. Owing to their advantages of rapid diagnosis, low cost, and low invasiveness, electrochemical aptasensors that can distinguish cancer biomarkers in body fluids have attracted widespread attention from researchers. However, the trade-off between selectivity and sensitivity hinders the use of trace cancer marker assays in the early stage. To solve this issue, an increasing quantity of functionalized materials and signaling mechanisms relevant to both sensitivity and selectivity have recently been developed. In this review, various functionalizing metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) and specific electrochemical techniques for the detection of cancer biomarkers are introduced, and their respective merits and shortcomings are discussed. Furthermore, this review describes the sensing performance and existing assay strategies of MOF-based electrochemical aptasensors for cancer marker recognition. Finally, the major challenges involved in the use of existing electrochemical aptasensors for detecting cancer biomarkers are evaluated to present future assay strategies and development prospects for MOFs.