Electrochemical Detection of Pathogenic Bacteria-Recent Strategies, Advances and Challenges

Bacterial infections represent one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide, nevertheless the design and development of rapid, cost-efficient and reliable detection methods for pathogens remains challenging. In recent years, electrochemical sensing methods have gained increasing attention for the detection of pathogenic bacteria, due to their increasingly competitive sensitivity. However, combining sensitivity with cost efficiency, high selectivity and a facile working procedure in a portable device is difficult. The presented review provides a summary of biosensing strategies for bacteria, published since 2015, by covering significant achievements towards custom-designed portable point-of-care devices. Herein, the direct chemical recognition of bacteria via enzyme activity or secretion products, as well as their detection at various electrode surfaces and materials, such as nanomaterials, indium tin oxide or paper-based immunosensors, is discussed. Furthermore, newly established hyphenated sensing principles, incorporated into lab-on-a-chip and microfluidic devices, are presented and remaining technical challenges and limitations are considered.