Sensing of amino acids: Critical role of nanomaterials for the efficient biomedical analysis

Amino acids (AAs) are essential, important, and integral parts of the human body that play a vital role in health. As important components of body metabolism, AAs are used as biocompatible materials for a variety of applications, including drug delivery, testing, human health, nutrition, and imaging. Due to their vital biological role, quick and accurate monitoring is very important in terms of human health. The application of various nanomaterials is of great interest in the development of sensors due to their unique properties compared to the bulk state. This review focuses on using advanced nanomaterials for fabrication of sensors and biosensors for AAs for efficient biomedical analysis of various diseases. The determination of AAs using various recognition methods such as optical, electrochemical, electrochemiluminescence, photoelectrochemical, and piezoelectric, in which more attention is paid to the presence of advanced nanomaterials and various biological factors are reviewed. Importantly, the role of different biological elements such as DNA, aptamer, antibody, enzyme, peptide on the sensing performance of AAs was surveyed, which is necessary for the selective analytical approaches for bioanalysis. Finally, the research and technological gaps are highlighted. It is important to point out that, this is the first comprehensive review in research area of AA’s sensing.