The ever-growing demand for fast, cheap, and reliable diagnostic tools for personalised medicine is encouraging scientists to improve existing technology platforms and to create new methods for the detection and quantification of biomarkers of clinical significance. Simultaneous detection of multiple analytes allows more accurate assessment of changes in biomarker expression and offers the possibility of disease diagnosis at the earliest stages. The concept of multiplexing, where multiple analytes can be detected in a single sample, can be tackled using several types of nanomaterial-based biosensors. Quantum dots are widely used photoluminescent nanoparticles and represent one of the most frequent choices for different multiplex systems. However, nanoparticles that incorporate gold, silver, and rare earth metals with their unique optical properties are an emerging perspective in the multiplexing field. In this review, we summarise progress in various nanoparticle applications for multiplexed biomarkers.
Keywords: gold nanoparticles; multiplexing; nanoparticles; quantum dots; silver nanoparticles; upconverting nanoparticles.