Functional Nucleic Acid Based Biosensors for Food Safety Detection

Abstract

The burden of foodborne diseases is heavy, which comes from all age groups and individuals in all regions. A person who is eating may be subject to microbial or chemical contamination, which can be divided into different categories and mostly can be prevented. Safer food can save millions of lives each year. Low cost and efficient biosensors for the detection of food safety risk factors such as microorganisms, GMF, heavy metal ion, chemical small molecules, or nucleic acid biomarkers in real food are still in the way. In recent years, functional nucleic acids have been widely used to develop biosensors because they can act as excellent signal recognition elements, the probes for signal amplification, or framework of nanostructure due to their unique properties. Biosensors integrated with functional nucleic acid offer several advantages over conventional methods due to variability and specificity of sequence, creating novel strategies for enhancing detection performance. In this monograph, the concept, recent advances, and perspectives of functional nucleic acid-based biosensor for the use of food safety detection will be comprehensively reviewed.