Aptamer-functionalized field-effect transistor biosensors for disease diagnosis and environmental monitoring

Nano-biosensors that are composed of recognition molecules and nanomaterials have been extensively utilized in disease diagnosis, health management, and environmental monitoring. As a type of nano-biosensors, molecular specificity field-effect transistor (FET) biosensors with signal amplification capability exhibit prominent advantages including fast response speed, ease of miniaturization, and integration, promising their high sensitivity for molecules detection and identification. With intrinsic characteristics of high stability and structural tunability, aptamer has become one of the most commonly applied biological recognition units in the FET sensing fields. This review summarizes the recent progress of FET biosensors based on aptamer functionalized nanomaterials in medical diagnosis and environmental monitoring. The structure, sensing principles, preparation methods, and functionalization strategies of aptamer modified FET biosensors were comprehensively summarized. The relationship between structure and sensing performance of FET biosensors was reviewed. Furthermore, the challenges and future perspectives of FET biosensors were also discussed, so as to provide support for the future development of efficient healthcare management and environmental monitoring devices.

A Supported Lipid Bilayer-Based Lab-on-a-Chip Biosensor for the Rapid Electrical Screening of Coronavirus Drugs

With the rapid spread and multigeneration variation of coronavirus, rapid drug development has become imperative. A major obstacle to addressing this issue is adequately constructing the cell membrane at the molecular level, which enables in vitro observation of the cell response to virus and drug molecules quantitatively, shortening the drug experiment cycle. Herein, we propose a rapid and label-free supported lipid bilayer-based lab-on-a-chip biosensor for the screening of effective inhibition drugs. An extended gate electrode was prepared and functionalized by an angiotensin-converting enzyme II (ACE2) receptor-incorporated supported lipid bilayer (SLB). Such an integrated system can convert the interactions of targets and membrane receptors into real-time charge signals. The platform can simulate the cell membrane microenvironment in vitro and accurately capture the interaction signal between the target and the cell membrane with minimized interference, thus observing the drug action pathway quantitatively and realizing drug screening effectively. Due to these label-free, low-cost, convenient, and integrated advantages, it is a suitable candidate method for the rapid drug screening for the early treatment and prevention of worldwide spread of coronavirus.