Recent progress in the design of G-quadruplex–based electrochemical aptasensors

Aptamer-based electrochemical sensors are now developed for the detection of a wide variety of analytes including ions, low-molecular-weight molecules, proteins, and living cells. An aptamer-based sensor is an analytical device whose bio-sensing element (i.e. the aptamer) is immobilized on a transducer surface. Aptasensors have attracted great attention because of their high selectivity, sensitivity, and stability; they could be miniaturized and are of low production cost and offer extraordinary flexibility in the design of their assemblies. This review will emphasize recent developments of aptasensors using aptamers that are able to adopt the particular G-quadruplex (G4) conformations, which are secondary DNA structures formed from guanine-rich sequences. Indeed, G4 exhibits notable recognition properties inherent to their particular structuration.