Aptamer Technology for the Detection of Foodborne Pathogens and Toxins

Abstract Good nutrition is the key to healthy well-being. Foodborne pathogens cause a large number of diseases worldwide and are responsible for ~20 million deaths yearly. Rapid and early detection is of vital importance for the prevention of outbreaks caused by foodborne pathogens. In order to achieve the early and accurate detection of foodborne pathogens directly or indirectly, a highly reliable point-of-care detection tool is required for onsite detection. This tool should not only be sensitive and selective, it should also have a minimal requirement of trained technicians. The current approaches of foodborne-pathogen detection include culture-based approaches that have high turnaround times, while a modern approach such as the nucleic acid amplification test has the ability to deliver results within few hours but requires sophisticated equipment. In the past decade, aptamer technology has shown great promise to be used as a diagnostic tool for the detection of a variety of pathogens including foodborne ones. Nucleic acid aptamers are synthetic oligonucleotides that acquire complex two-dimensional or three-dimensional structures to bind their targets with high affinity and specificity. In this chapter, we summarize the different kinds of aptamer-based biosensors determined by using various transduction principles, for example, optical, electrochemical, piezoelectrical, acoustic, and cantilever sensors which are very promising for the detection of foodborne pathogens and toxins. Owing to their specificity, low-cost, and high-throughput nature these biosensors could be used as standalone devices for onsite monitoring of foodborne-pathogen detection in the near future.