An insight in bacteriophage based biosensors with focus on their detection methods and recent advancements

Pathogenic bacteria have become a global issue and has affected various sectors like food, health and environmental monitoring, which has made the detection and identification of these pathogenic bacteria of utmost importance. Bacterial infections are the leading cause of most fatalities, often due to delay in diagnosis or misdiagnosis. Therefore, pathogenicity assessment of these bacteria has become crucial in understanding the disease dynamics. Although, conventional bacterial identification and characterization techniques like microscopic and molecular methods are available, being cost-intensive, time-consuming and tedious, makes it unsuitable for rapid analysis. There are raising concern about bacterial detection and pathogenicity assessment, which has prompted the researchers to exploit and develop biosensors derived from diverse bio-probes like enzymes, RNA, DNA, antibodies etc. However, bacteriophage-based biosensor system offers numerous advantages like cost-effectiveness, high affinity, high specificity, more stability and resistance towards various environmental factors like ion concentrations, pH and temperature. Therefore, the current review intends to highlight different bacterial detection techniques and facilitate with the basics of the biosensor. Additionally, it also discusses the different bio-probes used for biosensor development. Furthermore, it will also discuss the different types of phage-based biosensors and their importance.