Enzymes as Sensors.

Over the last few decades the development of new technologies, the fabrication of new materials, and the introduction of nanotechnologies created new trends in a series of advances that produced innovations in biological sensing devices with a wide range of application from health, security, defense, food, and medicine, to the environment. Specificity, low cost, rapidity, sensitivity, and multiplicity are some of the reasons for their growth, and their commercial success is expected to increase in the next future. Biosensors are devices in which the recognition part of the target molecule is accomplished by biological macromolecules such as proteins, enzymes, antibodies, aptamers, etc.

On the possibility of ephedrine detection: time-resolved fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)-based approach.

Ephedrine is one of the main precursor compounds used in the illegal production of amphetamines and related drugs. Actually, conventional analytical methods such as high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), capillary electrophoresis (CE), and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) are used for the detection of ephedrine; sadly, these methods require qualified personnel and are time-consuming and expensive. In order to overcome these problems, in recent years, different methods have been developed based on the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and electrochemical method.

A Fluorescence Polarization Assay To Detect Steroid Hormone Traces in Milk.

Steroids are a class of hormones improperly used in livestock as growth-promoting agents. Due to their high risk for human health, the European Union (EU) has strictly forbidden the administration of all natural and synthetic steroid hormones to food-producing animals, and the development of new rapid detection methods are greatly encouraged. This work reports a novel fluorescence polarization assay, ready to use, capable of detecting 17β-estradiol directly in milk samples with a low limit of detection of <10 pmol.