Abstract
The last decades have witnessed a steady increase of the social and political awareness for the need of monitoring and controlling environmental and industrial processes. In the case of nitrite ion, due to its potential toxicity for human health, the European Union has recently implemented a number of rules to restrict its level in drinking waters and food products. Although several analytical protocols have been proposed for nitrite quantification, none of them enable a reliable and quick analysis of complex samples. An alternative approach relies on the construction of biosensing devices using stable enzymes, with both high activity and specificity for nitrite. In this paper we review the current state-of-the-art in the field of electrochemical and optical biosensors using nitrite reducing enzymes as biorecognition elements and discuss the opportunities and challenges in this emerging market.
Highlights
Fast-growing biosensor technology has broad applications in the fields of health care, agricultural, environmental and industrial monitoring and nitrite biosensors are no exception
The sensitivity of the laponite/cytochrome c nitrite reductases (ccNiR)/single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs)/PGE biosensor was fairly reproducible over the period of three months and, as in the previous sol-gel based electrode, enzymatic activity was detected for several months
Similar works published by Ferreti et al [97] and Rosa et al [98] have suggested the employment of cd1 nitrite reductases (cd1NiRs) from Paracoccus pantotrophus (P. pantotrophus) in optical nitrite biosensors
Summary
Fast-growing biosensor technology has broad applications in the fields of health care, agricultural, environmental and industrial monitoring and nitrite biosensors are no exception. Clear-cut markets for nitrite sensing exist in the food industry, pollution control and clinical diagnostics. This review aims to provide a global overview of the efforts done towards the development of efficient nitrite biosensors using redox enzymes with catalytic activity for this analyte. Attention was mainly focused on nitrite reductases, the article covers parallel studies conducted with other proteins that display a secondary catalytic activity for nitrogen oxides. Due to the electron transfer (ET) nature of the catalysed reactions, signal transduction was achieved through electrochemical approaches with only few exceptions. The article begins by highlighting the relevance of nitrite quantification in real samples, proceeds with a detailed description of relevant works on nitrite biosensing and ends with a brief insight on future trends
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