Aptamer based electrochemical sensors for emerging environmental pollutants

Environmental contaminants monitoring is one of the key issues in understanding and managing hazards to human health and ecosystems. In this context, aptamer based electrochemical sensors have achieved intense significance because of their capability to resolve a potentially large number of problems and challenges in environmental contamination. An aptasensor is a compact analytical device incorporating an aptamer (oligonulceotide) as the sensing element either integrated within or intimately associated with a physiochemical transducer surface. Nucleic acid is well known for the function of carrying and passing genetic information, however, it has found a key role in analytical monitoring during recent years. Aptamer based sensors represent a novelty in environmental analytical science and there are great expectations for their promising performance as alternative to conventional analytical tools. This review paper focuses on the recent advances in the development of aptamer based electrochemical sensors for environmental applications with special emphasis on emerging pollutants.