Highly Efficient\nand Rapid Surface-Enhanced Raman\nSpectroscopy Active Platform Based on Au Nanorods for Ultrasensitive\nTraumatic Brain Injury Detection

Traumatic\nbrain injury (TBI), serving as a global health problem,\nis the primary cause of death and disability. However, the lack of\na simple, accurate, and rapid method to diagnose and distinguish the\ninjury severity of TBI in the acute phase and further improve the\nprognosis has been plaguing clinicians. To solve this problem, a highly\nsensitive surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) sensor, which\nwas based on gold nanorod (AuNR) arrays, has been designed for the\nquantitative determination of TBI biomarkers. To create this effective\nSERS sensor, the AuNRs were fabricated via optimizing the particle\nmorphology and, by evaporative self-assembly, optimizing AuNRs were\nassembled on microsilicon wafers to form AuNR array platforms with\nan enhancement factor of 1.24 × 10<sup>6</sup> and a limit of\ndetection reaching 10<sup>–2</sup> fg·mL<sup>–1</sup>. The ideal SERS sensors were further proven to have excellent sensitivity\nand reliability after being employed to analyze the various levels\nof S100β and IL-10 both in animal model blood samples and human\nblood samples. All results revealed that our biosensors can be a promising\nstrategy for point-of-care clinical diagnosis and TBI severity distinction.