ABSTRACT
Phytotoxins are naturally produced secondary metabolites of plant origin. Many food plants contain specific secondary metabolites classified as toxins or antinutrient compounds for humans. Toxic glycoalkaloids, lectins, and pyrrolizidine alkaloids represent toxins responsible for recently documented food poisoning outbreaks. Glycosides, one of the most prevalent toxins in food of plant origin, cause severe health hazards to humans. Therefore, detection and evaluation of their health risk are of great importance. Researchers studied electrochemical, optical, and natural enzymatic biosensors for toxin detection in food. Advanced biosensors, especially nanobiosensors, were authenticated for their wide detection range and efficiency. The biosensors were found to have good stability with a low detection limit. The cutting-edge methods require time-consuming sample preparation and analysis. On the contrary, biosensors permit rapid and reliable detection of naturally occurring food toxins in complex food samples. Various biosensors were reported to detect natural food toxins and are the endorsed choice of analytical tool when speed and high throughput are considered. The simultaneous utilization of multi detection techniques is highly suggested as a critical strategy for accurately detecting specific food toxins with structural complexity in complicated matrices. The detection of various food toxins structures and biological activities in a mixture of samples in a single detection phase is among the most anticipated advancements achieved by implying multisystem biosensors with multiple flow cells, sensing elements, and detection mechanisms on folded chips. This chapter summarizes the roles of advanced biosensors in analyzing naturally occurring food toxins of plant origin while also discussing the advantages, significant challenges, and perspectives of these biosensors for future commercialization.
