Aptamer-based approaches for the detection of waterborne pathogens

Waterborne ailments pose a serious threat to public health and are a huge economic burden. Lack of hygiene in drinking and recreational water is the chief source of microbial pathogens in developing countries. Poor water quality and sanitation account for more than 3.4 million deaths a year worldwide. This has urged authorities and researchers to explore different avenues of pathogen detection. There is a growing demand for rapid and reliable sensor technologies, in particular those that can detect in situ and perform in harsh conditions. Some of the major waterborne pathogens include Vibrio cholerae, Leptospira interrogans, Campylobacter jejuni, Shigella spp., enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli, Clostridium difficile, Cryptosporidium parvum, Entamoeba histolytica, and Hepatitis A virus. While conventional methods of pathogen detection like serodiagnosis and microbiological methods have been superseded by nucleic acid amplification methods, there is still potential for improvement. This review provides an insight into aptamers and their utility in the form of aptasensors. It discusses how aptamer-based approaches have emerged as a novel strategy and its advantages over more resource-intensive and complex biochemical approaches.