This review was completed by Professor Li Guoliang's team from Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, systematically proposing and analyzing novel strategies for bacteriophage biosensors in detecting foodborne pathogens, with a focus on amplification techniques across the entire chain from "recognition elements" to "signal transduction." The review establishes a new analytical framework, systematically organizing the applications of bacteriophage biosensors in foodborne pathogen detection. Starting from detection targets and markers, the article elaborates on how signal amplification strategies can significantly enhance sensor performance, while comprehensively summarizing biosensor designs based on different signal output modes and their applications in complex food matrices.

Research Background

Foodborne pathogen contamination poses a severe challenge to global public health, causing hundreds of millions of illnesses, hundreds of thousands of deaths, and significant economic losses annually. Traditional "gold standard" culture methods are time-consuming and cumbersome, failing to meet the demands of modern food safety regulation for rapid, accurate, and on-site detection. Although techniques like PCR and immunology have shortened detection time to some extent, they cannot distinguish between dead and live bacteria, are prone to interference from complex matrices, and remain costly.

Bacteriophages, as a class of viruses that specifically infect bacteria, serve as ideal recognition elements for constructing next-generation biosensors due to their unique biological characteristics—extremely high host specificity, the ability to distinguish live/dead bacteria, ease of modification, and low cost. However, the core challenge in this field remains how to efficiently convert the recognition events of bacteriophages into detectable, amplified signals and achieve simultaneous detection of multiple targets.

The review by Professor Li Guoliang's team at Shaanxi University of Science and Technology addresses this challenge by proposing an innovative solution framework. It breaks away from the traditional single bacteriophage modification approach and instead systematically integrates the discovery of novel detection markers with multi-level signal amplification strategies, paving a new pathway for ultrasensitive, highly specific, and rapid detection of foodborne pathogens.