Recent advances in aflatoxin B1 detection based on nanotechnology and nanomaterials-A review

Aflatoxin B1(AFB1) is one of the most toxic mycotoxins produced by fungi and results in inevitable contamination of food and feed at very low concentrations. Therefore, there is an urgent need to implement selective, sensitive and highly convenient methods for the determination of aflatoxin B1. Among these methods, the progress of nanomaterials, owing to their high performances and versatile properties, offers great prospects for realizing highly sensitive, selective and simple detection of AFB1, overcoming the restrictions of traditional methods such as process-complicated, time-consuming, labor-intensive and instruments-expensive. Many nanomaterials have been used for the immobilization of biomolecules as signal generators or fluorescent quenchers or for signal amplification in AFB1 detection. This review highlights recent progress that has been made in the development of nanoparticle-based assays and focuses on the analytical potential of nanomaterials, such as Au/Ag nanoparticles (Au/Ag NPs), carbon-based nanoparticles (CBNs), magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs), Quantum dots (QDs) and novel nanomaterials, including up-conversion nanoparticles (UCNPs), metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and nanomaterial-functional DNA intelligent hydrogels, as well as hybrid nanostructures. The determination of AFB1 is divided into three aspects: sample pretreatment prior to AFB1 detection, immunoassays and biosensors. The details of the detection methods and their application principles are described, and the challenges and opportunities in the field of food analysis are described.