Metal Ion-Mediated Optical Biosensors with Signal Amplification: Recent Advances

Signal amplification is critical for the detection of meaningful trace targets in the field of biomedicine, food analysis, and environmental protection. A growing number of signal amplification techniques for biosensors involving metal ions have been reported in recent years, due to the merits of simplicity, low cost, and high efficiency. This review summarizes the recent advancement and outlines the signaling methods (i. e. metal-responsive probes, metal-catalyzed reactions, regulating catalysis, and atom spectrometry) that metal ions play in biosensing as well as their applications. Besides, the potential and challenges to be addressed in the field are discussed.