Biotechnology and Bioinformatics (1+1)

8.5.8 Conclusion

There have been great advances in the use of biosensors for marine toxin detection and the future is still more promising.

i) In general, biosensor technologies have some advantages versus analytical methods and animal bioassays that include low cost, ease-of-use,speed, no need of highly trained lab personnel and automation, most of them with very good reproducibility and robustness.

ii) These methods do not entail legal or ethical issues related to the use of laboratory animals.

iii) The evaluation of the toxicity of a sample with biosensor-based techniques does not require the use of a toxin standard of every compound of a toxin group, just are presentative member would suffice, which is one of the more important drawbacks of analytical methods, since certified standards for many marine toxin analogues are not available or easy to produce.

iv) Biosensors are characterised by the simplicity of use, even for non-skilled personnel, and the low cost.

v) At present, biosensors should be seen as bioanalytical tools for preliminary screening the toxicity of a sample. If the sample is considered suspicious, complementary analytical techniques should be used in shellfish may interfere in the measurements, a glutamate decarboxylase has been incorporated to a pre-treatment step, improving the limit of detection and the selectivity of the assay.

In summary, the existing biosensors seem to be highly promising as biotools for seafood toxicity screening, since they allow detection of phycotoxins with appropriate sensitivities. However, these devices still suffer from limitations that compromise their applicability and further work is required for their commercial exploitation.