Aptasensor technologies developed for detection of toxins

Abstract

Aptamers are defined as new generation of nucleic acids which has recently presented the promising spesifications over to antibodies. They can be produced in vitro by Systematic Evolution of Ligands by EXponential Enrichment (SELEX), and have the ability to recognize selectively and sensitively their targets; protein, toxin, drug or cell targets. Thus, they have a wide range of applications in different areas, such as, drug delivery, imaging and biosensing. Accordingly, an increasing number of studies related to aptamer based sensors “aptasensors” have been introduced in the literature. The recent studies on development of aptasensor technologies, which were applied for toxin detection, have been overviewed herein.