title: Progress and challenges in electrochemiluminescent aptasensors.
abstract: The importance of developing new diagnostic and detection technologies for the growing number of sensing challenges is rising each year. Here, we present a comprehensive and concise review on electrochemiluminescent (ECL) aptasensors by putting special emphasis on its characteristic features, advances, challenges, and applications of ECL based aptasensors. ECL is an ideal tool for constructing such sensors because of its inherent characteristics and can be easily integrated into aptamer based sensing platforms. This review summarizes the "synergistic benefits" of ECL aptamer-based sensors; classifications of ECL aptamer-based assay designs, and signal amplification strategies. This critical review highlights the effects of integration of nanomaterials, immobilization techniques, and amplification/detection strategies on the analytical performance of ECL based aptasensors. Moreover, several proof-of-concepts with appropriate figures and explanations have been shown to provide a general guide for the design of ECL aptasensors, and to stimulate further application of these ECL aptasensors. Finally, we conclude with the remaining challenges and opportunities to inspire further developments in ECL aptasensors.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, Jilin 130022, People's Republic of China; Laboratory of Analytical Optochemotronics, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Kharkiv National University of Radio Electronics, Kharkiv 61166, Ukraine.
authors.forename: Kateryna
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Muzyka
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, Jilin 130022, People's Republic of China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 19A Yuquanlu, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Muhammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Saqib
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, Jilin 130022, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Zhongyuan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, Jilin 130022, People's Republic of China. Electronic address: mirandazhang@ciac.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, Jilin 130022, People's Republic of China. Electronic address: guobaoxu@ciac.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Guobao
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Xu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D052157:Aptamers, Nucleotide / Q000737:chemistry*; D015374:Biosensing Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D055664:Electrochemical Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D004735:Energy Transfer; D004867:Equipment Design; D006801:Humans; D008163:Luminescent Measurements / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry; D021141:Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D052157:Aptamers, Nucleotide
keywords: Adsorption; Amplification; Aptasensor; Complementary DNA; Electrochemiluminesence; Energy transfer; Hybridization; Intercalation; Quenching; Structure-switching