Advancing Biomarker Detection with Peptide-Integrated Fluorescent Probes

Over-expressed biomarkers such as proteins, enzymes, and so forth are directly linked to various diseases. Hence, the timely detection of the biomarkers using the optical probes is a useful technique for the disease detection or early-stage prediction of a disease. Although, one of the major hurdles for this technique is the biocompatibility of the probe. In this regard, peptides are excellent choice considering their biocompatibility. Moreover, peptides are one of the most widely explored adaptable molecular templates for fabricating probes to detect biomarkers. Peptidyl templates are advantageous due to their easy synthetic methodologies, adoptable flexible structures and target selectivity. For example, various peptide-based sensors for the detection of nucleic acids including over-expressed miRNA, DNA, and RNA have been used over the decades. Numerous peptide-based enzyme-responsive biosensors, peptide conjugates have been widely explored for the detection of several therapeutically relevant overexpressed enzymes like cathepsin-B. The main focus of this review is to provide a concise overview on the recent developments for the peptide-based fluorescent probes to detect various biomarkers.