Recent progresses on emerging biosensing technologies and portable analytical devices for detection of food allergens

Background

The increasing food allergic cases have posed a great challenge to the human health worldwide. Avoiding the exposure to food allergens is still the only efficient method to prevent food allergic reactions for food allergic sufferers because there are no effective treatments for food allergy up to now. Therefore, it is crucial to develop analytical technologies for rapid and on-site detection of food allergens, helping allergy-prone groups make proper option when buying or eating foods. Recently, various detection technologies and portable analytical devices have been widely developed for rapid, accurate, and on-site screening of food allergens.

Scope and approach

In this review, first of all, the traditional detection methods were simply introduced and discussed. Then, the latest advances on emerging biosensing technologies (i.e., colorimetric biosensing, fluorescent biosensing, electrochemical biosensing, surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) biosensing, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensing, and dual-mode biosensing) and portable analytical devices (such as lateral flow assays (LFAs), microfluidic chips, and paper-based microfluidic devices) for the detection of food allergens were comprehensively summarized. Furthermore, the advantages and weaknesses of these analytical methods for food allergen detection were also compared and discussed. Most importantly, the remaining challenges and chances in this important field were also proposed.

Key findings and conclusions

Emerging biosensing technologies have shown a great potential in the on-site detection of food allergens. Impressively, the integration of biosensing technologies and portable detection devices (e.g., LFAs, microfluidic chips, and paper-based microfluidic devices) is one of the most promising methods for reliable and on-site detection of food allergens.