ABSTRACT
Food safety relies heavily on timely and reliable pathogen and/or toxin detection. Although culture-based analysis seems to remain indispensable for the near future, novel nano-enabled technologies have been developed and optimized, aiming at counterbalancing comparable reliability with much reduced assay times. The current state-of-the-art in food analysis is presented herein in two main sections, referring to pathogen detection strategies for reducing assay times and toxin detection schemes, respectively. Approaches based on DNA/RNA, nucleic acid sequencing, immunology, and biosensing systems are reviewed, putting emphasis on the developed bench-scale sensors and commercial systems. Technology barriers, unresolved issues and methodological uncertainties are, also, discussed, along with future trends and emerging technologies.
