Biomimetic Strategies and Artificial Optical Biosensors

A special issue of Biosensors (ISSN 2079-6374). This special issue belongs to the section "Optical and Photonic Biosensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 August 2024 | Viewed by 1338

Special Issue Editors

Department of Chemistry “Giacomo Ciamician”, University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy
Interests: optical biosensors; chemiluminescence biosensors; chemosensors; paper-based devices
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Department of Chemistry “Giacomo Ciamician”, University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy
Interests: optical biosensors; chemiluminescence biosensors; chemosensors; paper-based devices
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Receptors or enzymes generated by natural evolution in living organisms show a surprising ability to specifically recognize target molecules. When used as biosensor recognition elements, these biomolecules provide very high selectivity. However, they suffer from instability and low durability. The design of alternative robust artificial receptors and antibodies circumvents these limits.

For instance, an antibody can be successfully replaced by a corresponding molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP), sometimes called a ‘plastic antibody’, or by aptamers that are oligonucleotides that bind one or more specific target molecules.

On the other hand, enzymes are macromolecular biological catalysts that accelerate chemical reactions. The use of natural enzymes can encounter some challenges. Lately, nucleic acids that exhibit catalytic properties have attracted growing interest because they have certain advantages in comparison with traditional protein enzymes. DNAzymes are DNA-based catalysts, representing an important class of functional DNA, which have been widely used because of their excellent activity, programmability, signal amplification through catalytic turnover, high chemical stability, simple synthesis, and easy modification.

The topic of this Special Issue is related to biomimetic detection exploiting alternatives to natural receptors, such as antibodies, enzymes, etc., separated into the following categories:

(1) Artificial receptors as molecularly imprinted polymers and aptamers etc.

(2) Nucleic acids and nanozymes, nanoparticles or soft (sol–gel, hydrogel, etc.) and self-assembled materials used as artificial enzymes or extracellular matrix.

Dr. Donato Calabria
Dr. Mara Mirasoli
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • biomimetic biosensors
  • molecularly imprinted polymer
  • DNAzyme
  • enzyme-like activity
  • aptamers
  • catalytic nanomaterials
  • soft and self-assembled biomaterials
  • optical selection

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

20 pages, 1752 KiB  
Review
Aptasensors Based on Non-Enzymatic Peroxidase Mimics: Current Progress and Challenges
by Anna S. Davydova and Mariya A. Vorobyeva
Biosensors 2024, 14(1), 1; https://doi.org/10.3390/bios14010001 - 20 Dec 2023
Viewed by 1093
Abstract
Immunoassays based on antibodies as recognizing elements and enzymes as signal-generating modules are extensively used now in clinical lab diagnostics, food, and environmental analyses. However, the application of natural enzymes and antibodies has some drawbacks, such as relatively high manufacturing costs, thermal instability, [...] Read more.
Immunoassays based on antibodies as recognizing elements and enzymes as signal-generating modules are extensively used now in clinical lab diagnostics, food, and environmental analyses. However, the application of natural enzymes and antibodies has some drawbacks, such as relatively high manufacturing costs, thermal instability, and lot-to-lot variations that lower the reproducibility of results. Oligonucleotide aptamers are able to specifically bind their targets with high affinity and selectivity, so they represent a prospective alternative to protein antibodies for analyte recognition. Their main advantages include thermal stability and long shelf life, cost-efficient chemical synthesis, and negligible batch-to-batch variations. At the same time, a wide variety of non-protein peroxidase mimics are now available that show strong potential to replace protein enzymes. Here, we review and analyze non-protein biosensors that represent a nexus of these two concepts: aptamer-based sensors (aptasensors) with optical detection (colorimetric, luminescent, or fluorescent) based on different peroxidase mimics, such as DNAzymes, nanoparticles, or metal-organic frameworks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Biomimetic Strategies and Artificial Optical Biosensors)
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