Overview—gold nanoparticles-based sensitive nanosensors in mycotoxins detection

Abstract

Food-borne mycotoxins is one of the food safety concerns in the world. At present, nanosensors are widely used in the detection and analysis of mycotoxins due to their high specificity and sensitivity. In nanosensor-based mycotoxindetections, the sensitivity is mainly improved from two aspects. On the one hand, based on the principle of immune response, antigens and antibodies can be modified and developed. Such as single-domain heavy chain antibodies, aptamers, peptides, and antigen mimotopes. On the other hand, improvements and innovations have been made on signal amplification materials, including gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), quantum dots, and graphene, etc. Among them, gold nanoparticles can not only be used as a signal amplification material, but also can be used as carriers for identification elements, which can be used for signal amplification in detection. In this article, we systematically summarized the emerging strategies for enhancing the detection sensitivity of traditional gold nanoparticles-based nanosensors, in terms of recognition elements and signal amplification. Representative examples were selected to illustrate the potential mechanism of each strategy in enhancing the colorimetric signal intensity of AuNP and its potential application in biosensing. Finally, our review suggested the challenges and future prospects of gold particles in detection of mycotoxins.

Keywords:

• Mycotoxins
• gold nanoparticles
• element recognition
• signal amplification
• immunochromatographic strip
• nanoparticle accumulation

Disclosure statement

Neither the entire manuscript nor any part of its content has been published or accepted elsewhere. All authors have approved this submission. All authors are jointly responsible for this publication. We declare that we have no financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality, Science and Technology Innovation Action Plan (Grant No. 21N31900600, 17391901400); and the National Natural Science Funds (Grant No. 32072822).