Nanotechnology in detection of food toxins – focus on the dairy products

Abstract

Nanotechnology is the field of science which has been recently applied in different field of biomedical sciences, targeted drug delivery, imaging, theranostics, etc. The vast surface area to volume ratio of engineered nanostructures is utilized for designing many biosensors. Food production, processing, packaging, storage, and transport engage many kinds of chemicals and materials that may contribute some harmful effects on human health. These altogether are named as food toxins if their amount exceeds the safe limits for human consumption. We have searched the relevant articles in PubMed and Google scholar to write this review and selected the appropriate articles to prepare the manuscript. The detection of such food toxins can be done using conventional methods, but their sensitivity, time, and limit of detection and cost cost-effectiveness are a matter of concern. Nanotechnology has been used for designing different kinds of biosensors to overcome the barriers of low sensitivity. In this review, we will discuss nanotechnology's application in the detection of different kinds of food toxins, especially dairy products.