Development of a cellular biosensor for the detection of aflatoxin B1, based on the interaction of membrane engineered Vero cells with anti-AFB1 antibodies on the surface of gold nanoparticle screen printed electrodes

Abstract The development of methods for the detection of aflatoxin B 1 (AFB 1 ) in foods is a very important practice for ensuring food quality and safety. Most tests of AFB 1 are still conducted with conventional methods (i.e. antibody-based ELISA tests, high performance liquid chromatography – HPLC); however biosensor methods are being developed to date as screening tools for field analysis. Compared to immunology/ELISA-like tests or chromatography methods, biosensors are able to provide rapid, sensitive, robust and cost effective quantitative methods for on-site testing. In this work we propose a cellular biosensor based on Vero cells, membrane engineered with anti-AFB 1 antibody as the biological recognition element reacting with AFB 1 molecules on gold nanoparticle/screen printed electrodes (SPEs) (three electrode system). In order to culture the cells on the SPEs surfaces the working electrodes were coated with poly- l -lysine to facilitate cell adhesion. The SPEs were connected to a potentiostat device through a transducer and chronoamperometric (CA) and cyclic voltammetric (CV) measurements were performed. Quantitative results obtained using the cellular biosensor method for AFB 1 were compared to those obtained using the HPLC method in pistachio samples spiked with AFB 1 . The method displayed good sensitivity (r 2  = 0.87) and detection limit (0.5 ng/mL).