Integration of electrochemical interface and cell-free synthetic biology for biosensing

Abstract

• Review about advanced electrochemical biosensors built on cell-free synthetic biology systems. • Summary of the strategies and methods for efficiently integrating electrochemical interface with cell-free synthetic biology. • Critical discussion on current progress and prospect of future development directions. With increasing concerns about health, safety, and environmental issues, the development of sensitive, reliable and efficient biosensing technologies for the early detection of disease biomarkers and toxic chemicals is highly desirable. Electrochemical techniques have the advantages of low cost, high sensitivity and easy miniaturization. Cell-free synthetic biology has emerged as a powerful solution to utilize and extend the capacities of biological systems for specific purposes, and its unprecedented disagree of control and design flexibility has brought new inspiration to the field of electrochemical biosensing. This mini-review summarized the research progress on integrating cell-free synthetic biology, including genetic circuits and CRISPR-Cas systems, with nucleic acid- and enzyme-based electrochemical interfaces to develop high-performance biosensors. Finally, we also discussed the challenges and prospects of their in-depth and comprehensive integration.