Ensuring seafood safe to spoon: a brief review of biosensors for marine biotoxin monitoring

With harmful algal blooms, marine food poisoning caused by marine biotoxins frequently occurs and is life-threatening if severe. However, the conventional detection methods of marine toxins have a few limitations: low sensitivity and high-cost. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a fast and sensitive on-site detection method for real seafood sample. Biosensors based on aptamers, antibodies, and cells have been applied in marine toxins monitoring. This review presents the classification and toxic effects of marine toxins, and recent biosensor for marine toxin detection. In addition, we have compared the superiority and limitation of these biosensors. Finally, challenges and opportunities of biosensors in food safety detection were discussed. Considering the excellent results achieved by the aptasensor in the field of detection, it seems ready to be put into practical applications.

Automated summary

Marine food poisoning caused by harmful algal blooms and marine biotoxins can be life-threatening. However, traditional detection methods for marine toxins have limitations such as low sensitivity and high cost. Therefore, the development of fast and sensitive on-site detection methods for seafood samples is necessary. Biosensors based on aptamers, antibodies, and cells have been used for marine toxin monitoring and have shown promising results. However, there are still challenges and opportunities that need to be addressed in the field of biosensors for food safety detection.