Innovations in smart enzyme biosensors: Advancing the detection of antibiotic residues in aquaculture

Abstract

In aquaculture, the presence of antibiotic residues is an escalating concern that poses significant risks to human health. Establishing efficient and user-friendly detection methods for antibiotic residues has become crucial to mitigate these potential hazards. To address the limitations of traditional techniques, novel enzyme biosensors, offering high sensitivity and specificity and rapid response, has been introduced for monitoring a wide range of antibiotics in food safety applications. Herein, this paper reviews the innovations and advances of smart enzyme biosensors for the detection of up to 23 antibiotics in aquatic foods (fish, shrimp, crab, etc.) and related water samples in the last decade, focusing on biosensors' construction principles, detection performance, and potential applications. The colorimetric biosensors account for 62.5 %, and the limit of detection (LOD) reaches as low as fM levels. To our best knowledge, this is the first review to introduce the innovations and progress in smart enzyme biosensors for the detection of antibiotic residues in aquaculture, with the evolution from conventional natural enzyme-based biosensors to biosensors containing bio-recognition elements and mimic enzymes, and then the integrated mimic enzyme-based biosensors. These biosensors realized highly-sensitive and specific detection of antibiotics. Further development should focus on exploration of multifunctional and intelligent bio-sensing strategies, robust mimic enzyme-based biosensors, and biosensors based on integrated mechanism of recognition and transduction, so as to promote the techniques from lab studies into practical applications. This review serves as powerful enlightenment to inspire further enhancement of smart enzyme biosensors for monitoring antibiotics in aquaculture to ensure food safety.