Optical biosensors for microbial toxin detection: Recent advances and future trends

Microbial toxins with high toxicity have caused significant threats to human health, economics and ecological environment, attracting considerable attentions around the world. Developing specific, highly sensitive, reliable, rapid and cost-effective detection technologies is essential to confront such threats. In recent years, novel optical biosensors due to their simple design, autonomous operation, fast response, high-frequency monitoring without extensive sample preparation and excellent recognition capability have been applied in the ultrasensitive detection of trace microbial toxins. In this paper, the recent advances of various novel optical biosensors for microbial toxins determination are summarized with emphasis on fluorescent, colorimetric, chemiluminescent, electrochemiluminescent, surface plasmon resonance and surface enhanced Raman scattering biosensors. Furthermore, the advantages, current development status, limitations in practical application, and future prospects of these technologies were also discussed comprehensively. It is expected to promote the future development and wide application of optical biosensors.