Molecular recognition elements-integrated multimodal nanosensing of aflatoxin B1: design principles and...

Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) is a potent hepatocarcinogenic mycotoxin that poses severe health risks through contaminated agricultural products. Rapid, sensitive, reliable, and field-deployable detection methods are therefore critical for food safety. Conventional instrumental techniques suffer from high cost, complex operation, and unsuitability for on-site screening. Biosensors employing molecular recognition elements (MREs) such as antibodies, aptamers, and molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) have emerged as promising alternatives, offering enhanced specificity and sensitivity. Nevertheless, single-mode sensing platforms remain fundamentally vulnerable to environmental interferences, matrix effects, and instrumental drift, leading to compromised accuracy and reliability. In this context, it is essential to conduct an in-depth review of AFB1 detection strategies to advance the establishment of a multimodal nanosensing paradigm. It details the integration of functional nanomaterials, including metal nanoparticles, metal oxides, carbon-based nanomaterials, metal-organic frameworks and their derivatives, and MXenes, with MREs to construct dual-mode and triple-mode sensing platforms. The molecular specificity conferred by MREs ensures selective target capture in complex food matrices. The multimodal signal transduction, encompassing fluorescent-colorimetric (FL-CL), surface-enhanced Raman scattering-fluorescent (SERS-FL), electrochemical-optical/photoelectrochemical (EC-Optical/PEC), and triple-mode configurations, provides the built-in cross-validation and self-calibration capabilities of detection results. Finally, the challenges and future prospects are discussed, including further integration and coordination of multimodal signals, miniaturized portable sensing platforms, advanced nanomaterials, and detection-remediation integration. This review advances the rational design of next-generation AFB1 multimodal self-calibrating nanosensors with integrated MREs, and promotes their practical deployment in food safety regulation, and public health protection.