Aptasensors for full body health checkup

Abstract

In the last couple of decades, aptamers have been one of the preferred biomolecular recognition elements in biosensors. The platform of aptasensors (aptamer-based biosensors) is demonstrated to solve practical research problems in various areas. Aptamers and biosensors altogether gift a specific, selective, sensitive, affordable, easy to operate, robust, rapid, stable, and low sample volume analytical platform. In diagnostics, numerous review articles are published discussing the detection of various types of non-infectious and infectious diseases using aptasensors, but to the best of our knowledge, no one has reviewed the available information from the perspective of the utility of aptasensors for a full body health checkup. Therefore, to bridge this existing gap in knowledge in terms of the utility of aptasensors for full body health checkup and to provide a new perspective to the aptasensor community, in this review article, we are reviewing a battery of aptasensors, which has been utilized to detect biomarkers that correlate well with an individual's health status. Our motive in this review is to demonstrate the expansion of utility of aptasensors in routine full body checkups. Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment (SELEX), design configurations, and various detection methods employed for aptasensors are also discussed. Along with, the existing gap in the field, current challenges, and future of aptamers in diagnostics with concluding remarks are also presented in this review article.