Electrochemical aptamer-based biosensors

Abstract

Aptamers are newly emerged sensing elements that are competitive with or sometimes even better than antibodies due to their various advantages: a compact size, cost effectiveness, chemical stability, in vitro synthesis, easy modification, labeling and so on. Therefore, there have recently been intensive advances in aptamer-based biosensors including electrochemical aptasensors that are more proper to the miniaturization and integration of biosensors for high-throughput analysis and point-of-care (POC). In this review, we have summarized new state of the art strategies for an aptamer-based electrochemical sensing platform and manners of signal amplification in the categories of simple label-free electrochemical detection, electrochemical signal amplification using enzymes or nanoparticles, target-induced conformational changes, and displacement formats.