Applications of advanced materials in bio-sensing in live cells: Methods and applications

Highlights: • Detection of biomolecules or biomarkers in live cells are highly important. • New advanced materials had main effect on the developments of live cell based sensors. • New specific and sensitive approaches can detect various agents in live cells at nM levels. • Carbon and gold based materials have been widely used in developments of live cell based sensors. A wide variety of species, such as different ions, reactive oxygen species, and biomolecules play critical roles in many cell functions. These species are responsible for a range of cellular functions such as signaling, and disturbed levels could be involved in many diseases, such as diabetes, cancer, neurodegeneration etc. Thus, sensitive and specific detection methods for these biomarkers could be helpful for early disease detection and mechanistic investigations. New ultrasensitive sensors for detection of markers within living cells are a growing field of research. The present review provides updates in live cell-based biosensing, which have been published within the last decade. These sensors are mainly based on carbon, gold and other metals, and their physicochemical advantages and limitations are discussed. Advanced materials can be incorporated into probes for the detection of various analytes in living cells. The sensitivity is strongly influenced by the intrinsic properties of the nanomaterials as well their shape and size. The mechanisms of action and future challenges in the developments of new methods for live cell based biosensing are discussed.