Biotoxin sensing in food and environment via microchip

Abstract

Biotoxin contamination in food and environmental samples has threatened health or life of human and animals. Thus, a rapid lab-independent sensing method for biotoxin determination is urgently required. Microchip sensing system allows a promising rapid and low-cost detection strategy. Herein, the recent development of various microchips, including microfluidic chip and microarray, has been discussed to sense various biotoxins in food and environmental samples (i.e. phytotoxin, animal toxin, marine toxin, and mycotoxin). Microchip can be served as both analyte transportation and sensing platform, via either labeling or labeling-free sensing strategy. Because of its fast sensing time, low sample consumption, ready portability, and high compatibility, it has been extensively employed in biotoxin determination in both academic and industrial circle. With the advances of fabrication strategies and sensing modes, the microchip performance has been dramatically improved, including sensitivity, efficiency, reliability, stability, cost saving, portability. The potential applications can be found wide spread in biotoxin sensing in the near future, while their practical application in real sample need to be addressed.

Keywords: Biotoxin; Microarray; Microfluidic chip; Mycotoxin; Sensing.