The Emerging Role of Biosensors in the Identification, Characterization, and use of Natural Bioactive Compounds

High specificity, less reagent requirement, swift response time, and high throughput screening make biosensors popular for detecting disease biomarkers, monitoring diseases, drug discovery, and other ecological applications such as the detection of environmental pollutants. Emerging health disorders demand targeted drugs with lower side effects in terms of advancing towards a low medicinal load. Active ingredients present in the different parts of plants and microorganisms have been used for several medical purposes for ages. Recent research has identified multiple promising natural bioactive compounds possessing the potential to mitigate several life-threatening diseases like Cancer, Diabetes, and Neurological disorders. Identifying such bioactive chemicals in the crude extract from various plant sources like leaves, roots, bark, fruits, and seeds, as well as in microbial extracts, is a tedious work that requires complex instrument setups, lengthy methods, and plenty of time, sometimes many years. The development and use of biosensors for natural bioactive moieties can overcome such problems and expedite the drug discovery process. This chapter provides a summary of the available biosensors for bioactive chemicals detection in extracts and fractions of organisms/plants, their types, design, and methods used for that purpose. Moreover, the chapter highlights the current use and the progress of the development of biosensors for identifying bioactive natural compounds. 

Keywords: Biosensors, Cell-free biosensor, Cell-based biosensor, Nano-based biosensor, Phytochemicals.