Nader Elmi Ghiasi - Bioanalysis Lab, Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
Hedayatollah Ghourchian - Bioanalysis Lab, Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

More than billion dollars turnover of livestock industry has made that very attractive from economical point of view. One of the prominent issues in livestock industry is growing the birth rate to increase daily demands for meat and milk in the society. Therefore, on time detection of pregnancy of livestock is a facilitative element for this purpose. Traditional methods for detecting the pregnancy of livestock are essentially costly and late return, for instance, ultrasonography and uterus palpitation can have potential dangers for the fetus. Progesterone is an important hormone which can be used as a biomarker to monitor the pregnancy in mammalian. In the present research we proposed a biosensor for detection of progesterone at low concentrations. We used gold nanoparticles and progesterone specific aptamer to develop a newly designed biosensor. Gold nanoparticles have strong SPR and their color changes at dispersed or aggregated conditions can report the specific interaction of aptamer-progesterone. Based on this dual behavior of gold nanoparticles an aptasensor was introduced to monitor the concentration of progesterone at nanomolar ranges.

Biosensor, GNP, Aptamer, Pregnancy, Livestock, Progesterone