Recent advances in biosensor-integrated enrichment methods for preconcentrating and detecting the low-abundant analytes in agriculture and food samples

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trac.2020.115914Get rights and content

Highlights

  • An overview about the biosensor-integrated enrichment method to analytes in agricultural and food samples was presented.

  • Three types of material-based enrichment methods were systematically introduced.

  • Electrokinetic preconcentration, a most common electric-based enrichment method, was performed.

  • The trends of the biosensor-integrated enrichment methods were summarized and predicted.

Abstract

With the increasing development of the society and the growing awareness to health, the public has been concerned about the safety and quality of agriculture and food products for many years. Biosensor, an efficient analytical device, has been broadly applied in the analysis to agriculture and food samples. Since the analytes in agriculture and food samples are low-abundant and complex, there is an urgent need to concentrate the analytes with suitable enrichment methods before the biosensor-based detection. In this review, we highlight recent advances and future trends in the biosensor-integrated enrichment methods to preconcentrate the low-abundant analytes of agriculture and food samples, including material-based enrichment methods and electric-based enrichment methods. We do hope that the biosensor-integrated enrichment methods would be easier, more stable, novel, integrated and efficient in the next few years and the enrichment performance would be enhanced with the inspirations from our review.

Introduction

Recently, the safety and quality of agriculture and food samples have drawn more and more public attentions due to various pollutants [1]. For example, heavy metal ions [2,3] are bio-concentrated along the food chains and migrated in the environment water that has amount of metal-containing objects [4]; abuse and improper usages of numerous pesticides [5] and antibiotics [6] lead to reserve toxic residues in plants and animal samples; the agriculture and food samples are contaminated with various pathogenic bacteria and viruses during the production and consuming processes [7], etc. In the past decades, great efforts have been made in the development of various methods to detect the analytes of agriculture and food samples [8]. Among them, biosensor is one of the most promising analytical devices to detect the analytes with the features of rapid detection process, high adaptability, small size and low cost [9]. However, the application fields of direct-biosensor assays are constrained by its unsatisfactory sensitivity because most analytes in agriculture and food samples are low-abundant and complex [10]. As a common strategy to improve the sensitivity and accuracy of assays, the preconcentration to the low-abundant analytes can be integrated with the biosensor analytical device, named as the biosensor-integrated enrichment methods. In this review, the assay, including “a kind of sensor which detect analytes based on bio-materials (antibodies, nucleic acids, proteins, etc.)”, is classified into the biosensor.

Based on the preconcentration principles, material-based enrichment methods, electric-based enrichment methods [8,11,12] and bio-organism-based enrichment methods [13] are proposed to preconcentrate the low-abundant analytes. In this review, the first two methods would be systematically investigated due to its much more usage in agriculture and food samples. When it comes to the material-based enrichment methods, the preconcentration process is principally ascribed to the adsorptions or specific bindings between target compounds and the sorbents. Therein, three major types materials, derived from the materials categories of material-based enrichment methods, are put forward to concentrate the low-abundant analytes, including magnetic beads (MBs) [[14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19]], porous materials [[20], [21], [22]] and aggregation nanoparticles [[23], [24], [25], [26]]. Nevertheless, it should be noted that several types of material-based enrichment methods, such as liquid-liquid extraction [[27], [28], [29]], which are not often used as the pretreatment procedure of biosensors for the agriculture and food samples, are not discussed in this review. For electric-based enrichment methods [30], the low-abundant analytes are concentrated by the most commonly used electrokinetic preconcentration [[31], [32], [33], [34], [35]], which are associated with the difference of size, charge quantity and polarity between analytes and impurities.

In this review, a general overview of the biosensor-integrated enrichment methods to preconcentrate and detect the low-abundant analytes of agriculture and food samples, including material-based enrichment methods and electric-based enrichment methods, is presented. The summary table (Table 1) is located on the experimental setups (including analytes, biosensor methods and samples) and the analytical performance (including dynamic range (DR) and limit of detection (LOD)) of the biosensor-integrated enrichment assays. The outlooks and trends are proposed for further potential orientations in preconcentrating the low-abundant analytes. We aim to offer a new perspective on the biosensor-integrated enrichment methods to preconcentrate the low-abundant analytes.

Section snippets

Material-based enrichment methods

Material-based enrichment methods have been extensively taken as the pretreatment procedure to the low-abundant analytes of agriculture and food samples in view of the rich variety, high efficiency and outstanding sensitivity [18,20]. For a typical materials-based preconcentration assay, the as-enriched analytes are adsorbed or specifically bound by the sorbent [61]. In this section, recent advances of three classes of materials-based enrichment methods are discussed, including magnetic beads

Electric-based enrichment methods

Electric-based enrichment methods are widely used as the preconcentration process to the low-abundant analytes in view of their convenience, high efficiency and cost-effectivity [8]. For a typical electric-based enrichment assay, the enrichment to the low-abundant analyte is mainly associated with its size, mass, charge quantity and polarity, which induce the differentiated migration direction and rate between targets and impurities within the electric field [30,32]. According to the enrichment

Conclusion and outlooks

Since the increasing concerns on the safety and quality of the agriculture and food samples, the biosensor-integrated enrichment methods are playing more and more important roles in detecting the low-abundant analytes. In this review, we summarized the state-of-the-art developments and advances of the biosensor-integrated enrichment methods for preconcentrating and biosensing the low-abundant analytes of agriculture and food samples. According to the enrichment principle, two main enrichment

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (31571918) and Key Research and Development Programs in Yunnan province, China (2018BC005).

Abbreviations

1-m-4-MP
1-methyl-4-mercaptopyridine
AA
l-ascorbic acid
AAP
l-ascorbic acid 2-phosphate
AC
Alternating-current
AChE
Acetylcholinesterase
ALP
Alkaline phosphatase
AMP
Adenosine monophosphate
AuNPs
Gold nanoparticles
BSA
Bovine serum albumin
COFs
Covalent organic frameworks
CPs
Coordination polymers
DA
Dopamine
DC
Direct-current
DEP
Dielectrophoretic
DMTP
2,5-dimethoxyterephaldehyde
DPV
Differential pulse voltammetry
DR
Dynamic range
GMP
Guanosine monophosphate
ICP
Ion concentration polarization
ITP
Isotachophoresis
LAMP
Loop mediated

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