A newly emerging trend of chitosan-based sensing platform for the organophosphate pesticide detection using Acetylcholinesterase- a review

Organophosphate pesticides have been extensively used to protect the agricultural produce from being damaged by the pests while growing and the subsequent degradation in its quality. However, in the process of doing so, the pesticides and their degradation products, enter the soil and water and start accumulating in the food products. On the consumption of such pesticide infected food products, Acetylcholinesterase is inhibited, which can be potentially damaging to the central nervous system of human beings. Acetylcholinesterase plays a pivotal role in the orderly functioning of the nervous system and in case of its failure to do so; there is a plausibility of deteriorating health in the individual. This review gives an insight into the recent approaches towards the rapid sensing of the deleterious pesticides. Numerous sensing platforms, comprising of chitosan as the key element of the immobilization matrix for the subsequent binding of acetylcholinesterase have been highlighted in this study. Chitosan plays the decisive role by aiding in the maintenance of the activity of immobilized Acetylcholinesterase. The acetylcholinesterase enzyme-inhibition based biosensors pave the way for a speedy and feasible detection of the organophosphate pesticides present in the food articles by bypassing the copious pre-treatments. They also carry the possibility to be used for the real-life sample analysis. Thus, various transducers have been used in combination with the biopolymer chitosan, to produce highly sensitive biosensors for the detection of even trace amounts of these pesticides efficiently.