Graphene quantum dot based ultrasensitive probe for biosensing of prostate cancer biomarkers: current updates and future challenges

Prostate cancer (PC) is significantly increasing as a principal cause of mortality among the men's population. Accordingly, research scholars have made tremendous development for the effective treatment of PC. Despite this, the early diagnosis of PC is a challenging task for scientific fraternities due to the plenty of demerits of currently engaged methods in terms of sensitivity, selectivity, and many more. For that reason, PC management needs exceptional alternative strategies for proficient management of PC that can endow with early diagnosis of PC and eventually it will result in promising cure of PC. Strategies involved in advanced nanomaterials especially carbon nanomaterials have gained tremendous consideration due to their numerous benefits. Notably, graphene quantum dots (GQDs) are a promising next-generation carbon nanomaterial with manifold biomedical applications such as biosensing and drug delivery in cancer and different life-threatening health issues that may be due to the versatile and tunable properties of GQDs. In a nutshell, it provides high sensitivity and selectivity towards the target biomarker of PC. In this review, the prevalence and distribution of PC, major highlights and limitations of current diagnostics and treatments, as well as recent trends for PC management have been discussed in brief. Afterward, the synthesis methods, properties, biocompatibility, and bioconjugation of GQDs along with their impact on the performance of biosensors have been summarised in brief. Finally, the application of GQD based biosensors exhibited the lowest detection limit up to femtogram in simulated and real-time samples. As a result, the applications presents plentiful advantages including high sensitivity, high selectivity, high stability, rapid response, etc of the PC biomarkers. Therefore, this review will provide the details of recent updates to prepare and extend advanced biosensing prospects using GQDs as excellent nanomaterial probes in PC and other cancer types.