Ultrasensitive and specific detection of neurofilament light

Neurofilament light chain (NfL) is an important blood-based biomarker of neuroaxonal damage and holds strong potential for the early detection and monitoring of neurodegenerative diseases. However, its extremely low abundance in blood poses a major analytical challenge for sensitive and reliable detection.

Our new publication, “A label-free electrochemical aptasensor enables ultrasensitive and specific detection of neurofilament light”, reports on the NfL aptamer selection, binding validation, and ultrasensitive iOECT aptasensor implementation. The resulting label-free NfL biosensor enabled highly selective detection of NfL in diluted human serum with an attomolar limit of detection, providing a scalable, minimally invasive, and cost-effective biosensing strategy that could complement existing assays for future neurodegenerative disease diagnostics.

A neuron with a damaged axon, a petri dish with a mixture, and a schematic of an electrical circuit with molecular components. (Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.5, 2026-09-08)
An aptamer functionalized organic electrochemical transistor for neurofilament light (NfL) analysis. (A) schematic of NfL release following axonal damage. Upon axonal injury, cytoskeletal proteins, including NfL, are released into the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and, at lower concentrations, into the blood. Ultrasensitive analytical platforms are being developed to enable plasma NfL detection. (B) Application of biological samples to the iOECT sensor array. (C) Schematic illustration of the ion-gated organic electrochemical transistor (iOECT) sensing platform.


The study was carried out by Hangyu Li as part of his PhD research and was made possible through the continuous support and contributions of all co-authors. We gratefully acknowledge the Helmholtz Nano Facility for providing the cleanroom environment for organic electrochemical transistor fabrication.

Publication: Li, H., Hu, Q., Percze, K., Martínez Roque, M.A., Sun, S., Santoro, F., Offenhäusser, A., Mayer, D., 2026. A label-free electrochemical aptasensor enables ultrasensitive and specific detection of neurofilament light. Biosensors and Bioelectronics 311, 118884. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bios.2026.118884

Contact:

Dr. Dirk Mayer

Institute of Biological Information Processing-Bioelectronics (IBI-3)
Tel.: +49 2461 61-4023
E-Mail: dirk.mayer@fz-juelich.de

Last Modified: 08.09.2026