Phage-Based Biosensors for Food Analysis

Abstract

Biorecognition probes are crucial in biosensor development as they determine biosensor properties such as sensitivity, selectivity, and robustness. In the last few decades, bacteriophages (phages), a diverse group of viruses that specifically infect bacteria, have gained particular interest as biorecognition material thanks to their exceptional stability and genetically tunable target specificity by phage display technology. In this chapter, we summarize the use of phage as a biorecognition probe in biosensor development. We first give an overview of phage isolation, production, and engineering in accordance with the need of the application. We describe and categorize phage-based biosensors according to the transducer platform and detection method, and discuss their analytical performance with an emphasis on the performance of phage as a high-affinity and specific receptor of the targeted analyte.