A novel carbohydrate antigen 125 electrochemical sensor based on sweet almond oil organo-hydrogels

Ovarian cancer is a gynecological disease causing many deaths among women around the world. Carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA-125) is a single biomarker known to be a tumor marker of ovarian cancer. CA-125 is widely used to monitor the treatment process, recurrences, and for the detection of ovarian cancer. Herein, organo-hydrogels were prepared in order to detect CA-125 sensitively in serum medium with electrochemical methods. Organo-hydrogels were obtained by the free radical polymerization reaction using agar and glycerol with varying proportions of sweet almond oil using methylene bisacrylamide (MBA) or glutaraldehyde (GA) crosslinkers. Electrochemical measurements were performed with cyclic voltammetry (CV), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) on organo-hydrogel sweet almond oil (OHSAO) prepared in the presence and absence of CA-125. As a result of these measurements, two distinct linear ranges of 1–50 ng/mL and 100–1000 ng/mL were obtained. In addition, LOD and LOQ values for the sensor were calculated as 0.41 μU/mL and 1.24 μU/mL, respectively. In conclusion, the OHSAO-based electrochemical sensor is a promising electrode for CA-125 detection.Keywords: Organo-hydrogel, Sweet almond, CA-125, Ovarian cancer, Sensor