An overview and future prospects on aptamers for food safety

Abstract

Introduction Many bacteria are responsible for infections in humans and plants, being found in vegetables, water, and medical devices. Most bacterial detection methods are time-consuming and take days to give the result. Aptamers are a promising alternative for a quick and reliable measurement technique to detect bacteria present in food products. Selected aptamers are DNA or RNA oligonucleotides that can bind with bacteria or other molecules with affinity and specificity for the target cells by the SELEX or cell-SELEX technique. This method is based on some rounds to remove the non-ligand oligonucleotides, leaving the aptamers specific to bind to the selected bacteria. Compared with conventional methodologies, the detection approach using aptamers is a rapid, low-cost form of analysis. Objective This review summarizes obtention methods and applications of aptamers in the food industry and biotechnology. Besides, different techniques with aptamers are presented, which enable more effective target detection. Conclusion Applications of aptamers as biosensors, or the association of aptamers with nanomaterials, may be employed in analyses by colorimetric, fluorescence, or electrical devices. Additionally, more efficient ways of sample preparation are presented, which can support food safety to provide human health, with a low-cost method for contaminant detection. Key points • Aptamers are promising for detecting contaminants outbreaks. • Studies are needed to identify aptamers for different targets.

An In-Silico Pipeline for Rapid Screening of DNA Aptamers against Mycotoxins: The Case-Study of Fumonisin B1, Aflatoxin B1 and Ochratoxin A

“…Aptamers are nucleic acid biopolymers and represent a new generation of receptors that are selected in vitro by the Systematic Evolution of Ligands by EXponential Enrichment (SELEX) [ 1 , 2 ]. Aptamers are composed of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) or RNA usually in the region of 35–100 nucleotides in length and have the ability to recognize different classes of targets such as mycotoxins, amino acids, antibiotics, pesticides, proteins and even whole cells with high specificity and affinity [ 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ]. Compared to antibody generation, SELEX allows greater control over binding conditions and allows selection under non-physiological conditions.…”

Aptamers for Detection and Diagnostics (ADD) is a proposed mobile app acquiring optical data from conjugated quantum nanodots to identify molecules indicating presence of SARS-CoV-2 virus: Why public health and healthcare need smartphone sensors as a platform for early detection and prevention

“…Current and future 74 application 75 of aptamers include chemistry 76 , chemotherapy 77 , food 78 safety, diagnostics 79 , antibodies 80 , alt-vaccines 81 , imaging 82 and different 83 types 84 of biosensors 85 . ADD as a detection tool for SARS-CoV-2 proposes aptamer-based sensors (aptasensors) to detect SARS-CoV-2 proteins.…”

Aptamers for Detection and Diagnostics (ADD) is a proposed mobile app acquiring optical data from conjugated quantum nanodots to identify molecules indicating presence of SARS-CoV-2 virus: Why public health and healthcare need smartphone sensors as a platform for early detection and prevention

“…Current and future 75 application 76 of aptamers include chemistry 77 , chemotherapy 78 , food 79 safety, diagnostics 80 , antibodies 81 , alt-vaccines 82 , imaging 83 and different 84 types 85 of biosensors 86 . ADD as a detection tool for SARS-CoV-2 proposes aptamer-based sensors (aptasensors) to detect SARS-CoV-2 proteins.…”