Nanomaterial-assisted aptamers for optical sensing

Aptamers are single-strand DNA or RNA selected in vitro that bind specifically with a broad range of targets from metal ions, organic molecules, to proteins, cells and microorganisms. As an emerging class of recognition elements, aptamers offer remarkable convenience in the design and modification of their structures, which has motivated them to generate a great variety of aptamer sensors (aptasensors) that exhibit high sensitivity as well as specificity. On the other hand, the development of nanoscience and nanotechnology has generated nanomaterials with novel properties compared with their counterparts in macroscale. By integrating their strengths of both fields, recently, versatile aptamers coupling with novel nanomaterials for designing nanomaterial-assisted aptasensors (NAAs) make the combinations universal strategies for sensitive optical sensing. NAAs have been considered as an excellent sensing platform and found wide applications in analytical community. In this review, we summarize recent advances in the development of various optical NAAs, employing various detection techniques including colorimetry, fluorometry, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and surface plasmon resonance (SPR).