Recent advances in exponential amplification reaction-enabled biosensors

Exponential amplification reaction (EXPAR) is a synthetic biological circuit that can rapidly amplify short nucleic acid strands in an isothermal and exponential manner. EXPAR-enabled biosensors, developed through the integration of aptamers, nanomaterials, antibodies, and programmable nucleases, are widely applied in detecting both nucleic acid and non-nucleic acid targets critical in medical, environmental, and agricultural domains. This review summarizes recent advances in understanding and suppressing non-specific amplification in EXPAR, which is the most significant issue hampering the performance improvement of EXPAR-enabled biosensors. Subsequently, we introduce the application of EXPAR-enabled biosensors in detecting a broad range of analytes, with an emphasis on the strategies and their relevance to performance enhancement. Additionally, the trends in this area and the solutions associated with their challenges are discussed.