ABSTRACT
434Food-borne toxicants and food contamination is a major risk for human populations. Ensuring food safety for more than 7.5 billion people on this planet remains a major challenge for scientists around the world. There is a continual need and ever-increasing importance for the development of sensitive, specific, easy-to-use, and cost-effective biosensor platforms for food safety applications. The requirement for the development of such systems has gained even more importance due to the increased risks in the foodsupply chains in this current age of global production and global food distribution systems. The technological advancements in molecular biology have enabled researchers to change the properties of biomolecules on demand, thereby generating customized assay systems with nanosensing capabilities. In this regard, aptamers have emerged as powerful nanosensing tools and as viable alternatives to antibody based immunoassays to detect a wide range of ligands in the areas of food safety. Such aptamer-based nanosensing platforms are continuously being developed and improved to fulfill the complex molecular recognition needs in overall food supply chain. The extraordinary ability of aptamers that can be custom designed and bind tightly and specifically to their ligands underlines their immense utility in such nanosensor technologies. The current chapter focuses on the potential use of aptamers in food safety by borrowing specific examples, as a proof of concept, from advanced aptasensing platforms used in the detection of mycotoxins in different food matrices.
