Advances in Enzyme-Based Biosensors for Pesticide Detection

The intensive use of toxic and remanent pesticides in agriculture has prompted research into novel performant, yet cost-effective and fast analytical tools to control the pesticide residue levels in the environment and food. In this context, biosensors based on enzyme inhibition have been proposed as adequate analytical devices with the added advantage of using the toxicity of pesticides for detection purposes, being more “biologically relevant” than standard chromatographic methods. This review proposes an overview of recent advances in the development of biosensors exploiting the inhibition of cholinesterases, photosynthetic system II, alkaline phosphatase, cytochrome P450A1, peroxidase, tyrosinase, laccase, urease, and aldehyde dehydrogenase. While various strategies have been employed to detect pesticides from different classes (organophosphates, carbamates, dithiocarbamates, triazines, phenylureas, diazines, or phenols), the number of practical applications and the variety of environmental and food samples tested remains limited. Recent advances focus on enhancing the sensitivity and selectivity by using nanomaterials in the sensor assembly and novel mutant enzymes in array-type sensor formats in combination with chemometric methods for data analysis. The progress in the development of solar cells enriched the possibilities for efficient wiring of photosynthetic enzymes on different surfaces, opening new avenues for development of biosensors for photosynthesis-inhibiting herbicides.