Biosensors for early detection of fungi spoilage and toxigenic and mycotoxins in food

Biosensors represent technology that can be applied to several sectors of the food industry from the storage of grains and raw materials, food production/processing, security and protection, packaging of food. Diverse biosensors have emerged in the last decade as an alternative for analyzing microorganisms and toxins in food due to the capability for fast analysis, reproducibility, stability, and accuracy. A wide variety of transducers can be explored for mycotoxin and spoilage, fungi detection, where optical (surface plasmon resonance - SPR and fluorescence), piezoelectric (quartz crystal microbalance - QCM), and electrochemical (impedimetric, potentiometric and amperometric) spectroscopies stand out as main biosensing method. Biological materials (e.g. peptides, enzymes, antibodies, cells, nucleic acids) and bioinspired tools such as aptamers, molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) and recombinant antibodies present a high focus as sensing elements on biosensor studies Herein, we present an overview of the recent progress of the development of new biosensors for early detection of fungi (spoilage and toxigenic) and mycotoxins in food.