Design and use of electrochemical sensors in enantioselective high throughput screening of drugs. A minireview

The importance of reliable detection systems for enantiomeric assays increa ses with the necessity of high throughput screening analysis of raw materia ls for the pharmaceutical industry. The utilization of electrochemical sens ors in enantioselective analysis is an accurate and precise alternative to chromatographic techniques. The reliability of the response characteristics as well as of the analytical information obtained by using electrochemical sensors is strictly correlated with the design of the sensors. The designs evaluated for sensors have been based on PVC, imprinting polymers and carb on paste matrices. Among these, carbon paste sensors have been the most rel iable and have been utilized for the construction of potentiometric, enanti oselective membrane electrodes as well as for amperometric biosensors, and immunosensors. There are two ways to use the electrochemical sensors in ena ntioselective screening analysis: selective binding and catalyst selectivit y. A molecule with a special chemical architecture is required for selectiv e binding: a lock for a key. The high reliability of analytical information obtained using these sensors has made possible the automation of potentiom etric and amperometric techniques by integration of enantioselective sensor s as detectors in flow injection analysis and sequential injection analysis techniques.