Different enzyme-based strategies for the development of disposable electrochemical biosensors: Application to environmental pollutant monitoring

The increased concerns with the toxic effects of chemicals have led to the necessity of monitoring pollution levels into the different environmental compartments. Thus, in order to fulfill the increasing request of rapid analysis of environmental samples, electrochemical biosensors have been proposed as reliable, fast and inexpensive devices for the analysis of pollutants. Biosensors combine the selectivity of the biomolecular reactions with operational simplicity. Enzymes have found widespread use as sensing elements in catalytic electrochemical biosensors. Enzymes are also used in affinity biosensors, as label of the biorecognition event. The successful use of enzymes is essentially due to their specificity and to their ability to convert single biorecognition events into a multitude of detectable molecules. In this work, the use of enzymes for the development of both catalytic and affinity biosensors for the detection of environmental pollutants is described. In particular, different strategies for the development of catalytic, esterase-based biosensors for the detection of organophosphorous and carbamate pesticides, recently proposed by the author’s lab, will be revised. Moreover, preliminary results regarding the development of an emerging class of environmental pollutants, i.e. PBDEs, by means of an affinity biosensor will be also presented.