Conducting polymers for electrochemical DNA sensing

Conducting polymers (CPs) are a class of polymeric materials that have attracted considerable interest because of their unique electronic, chemical and biochemical properties, making them suitable for numerous applications such as energy storage, memory devices, chemical sensors, and in electrocatalysis. Conducting polymer-based electrochemical DNA sensors have shown applicability in a number of areas related to human health such as diagnosis of infectious diseases, genetic mutations, drug discovery, forensics and food technology due to their simplicity and high sensitivity. This review paper summarizes the advances in electrochemical DNA sensing based on conducting polymers as active substrates. The various conducting polymers used for DNA detection, along with different DNA immobilization and detection methodologies are presented. Current trends in this field and newly developed applications due to advances in nanotechnology are also discussed. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.