Nanobiosensors and Artificial Intelligence Strategies for Glycan Profiling in Cancer Progression: A Critical Review

Glycans are complex carbohydrates that are integral to cancer progression and tumor biology. Conventional methods face challenges due to the structural diversity and low abundance of glycans, limiting the detection of cancer-associated glycan signatures. This bottleneck hampers the accurate monitoring of cancer progression and the development of effective diagnostic tools. Nanobiosensor-enabled glycan profiling overcomes conventional limitations by providing highly sensitive detection of low-abundance glycans and precise discrimination of similar forms through nanoscale electrochemical or optical signal amplification and selective biorecognition. This review evaluates emerging nanobiosensors, including optical modalities such as surface plasmon resonance, localized surface plasmon resonance, surface-enhanced Raman scattering, fluorescence, and colorimetric nanobiosensors. It also covers electrochemical systems, including impedimetric, voltammetric, and amperometric sensors that use nanomaterials to enhance the sensitivity, specificity, and reliability of glycan detection. After a critical evaluation of nanobiosensors, this review highlights their applications for glycan analysis in cancer progression and potential of miniaturized point-of-care platforms. In parallel, this review highlights emerging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) approaches that are being explored to analyse complex biosensor outputs. By enabling multivariate pattern recognition, dimensionality reduction, and nonlinear modeling of biosensor responses, these computational frameworks may facilitate the extraction of diagnostically relevant signatures from high-dimensional optical and electrochemical datasets. The review identifies challenges in standardization and clinical scalability of nanobiosensors and explores future directions, including AI integration to advance early cancer detection and personalized patient management.