Capillary electrophoresis coupled to biosensor detection

The present review highlights some modern aspects of biosensor revelation, a detection method which has already found a large number of applications i n healthcare, food industry and environmental analysis. First, the concept of bio-recognition, which is at the heart of biosensor technology, is discu ssed, with emphasis on host-guest-like recognition mechanisms. This detecti on device has been successfully coupled, in its first applications, to chro matographic columns, which allow a high resolution of complex mixtures of a nalytes prior to interaction with the biosensing unit. The properties of th e transducing elements, which should generate a signal (e.g., electrochemic al, thermal, acoustic, optical) of proper intensity and of relative fast ri se, are additionally evaluated and discussed. The review then focuses on po tential applications of biosensing units in capillary electrophoresis (CE) devices. CE appears to be an excellent separation methodology to be coupled to biosensor detection, since it is based on miniaturized electrophoretic chambers, fast analysis times, complete automation in sample handling and d ata treatment and requires extremely small sample volumes. Although only a few applications of CE-based biosensors have been described up to the prese nt, it is anticipated that this hyphenated technique could have a considera ble expansion in the coming years, (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All right s reserved.