Recent advances in fluorescent aptamer-based sensors for food safety analysis

Hou, R.#; He, L.#; Ji, X.#; Rong, X.; Yin, Y.; Li,X.*; Weng, Y.*; Zhao, X.*

Trends in Food Science & Technology, 2025

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tifs.2025.105023

Abstract

Foodborne contaminants pose a significant threat to human health and their effective detection is crucial to ensuring food safety. Traditional detection methods such as chromatography, mass spectrometry and immunoassays are accurate and selective but time-consuming, labor-intensive, and unsuitable for on-site or real-time detection. In contrast, fluorescent DNA or RNA aptamer-based sensors (aptasensors) offer advantages of simplicity, sensitivity, selectivity, rapid response, and low cost, and are promising for rapid food safety analysis. This article reviews recent advancements in the development of fluorescent aptasensors categorized into four fluorescence mechanisms, i.e., Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET), inner filter effect (IFE), restricted intramolecular rotation (RIR), and aggregation-induced emission (AIE). This review provides a detailed discussion on the mechanism, performance, and pros and cons of fluorescent aptasensors designed based on these mechanisms as well as their applications in foodborne contaminant detection. The challenges in this field are also discussed to provide insights into future research directions.