Biosensing meets click chemistry: A promising combination for analysis of food hazard factors

Food safety is one of the significant global problems that has gained widespread attention all over the world. Consequently, it is crucial to develop sensitive and reliable detection technologies to ensure food safety. Notably, biosensing technologies have been widely applied in the analysis of food hazard factors due to their merits of portability, versatility, good sensitivity, rapid response, and reusability. To further improve the detection performance of biosensors, click chemistry has been successfully applied in the design and construction of biosensors because of its numerous advantages, such as moderate reaction conditions, high efficiency, no by-products, and accurate selectivity. In recent years, click chemistry-mediated biosensing platforms have obtained extensive applications in the area of food safety detection. By combining with portable analytical devices, the on-site detection of food hazard factors can be realized. In this review, we for the first time thoroughly summarized the recent advances on the click chemistry-based biosensing platform and portable analytical devices for food safety detection. First of all, the common click reactions and mechanisms involved in the construction of biosensors were introduced and discussed. Then, the design and construction of the biosensing platforms and portable analytical devices based on click chemistry were summarized, and their strengths and weaknesses were also discussed and summarized. Ultimately, attention was focused on the applications of click chemistry-enabled biosensing platforms and portable analytical devices in the detection of food hazard factors (e.g., pesticide residues, foodborne pathogens, mycotoxins, antibiotics, food allergic proteins, and heavy metal ions). Impressively, future obstacles and chances in the development and applications of click chemistry-based biosensing platforms were tentatively put forward.