Application progress of microfluidics-integrated biosensing platforms in the detection of foodborne pathogens

Background: Food safety is of concern for the development and survival of all mankind, and detection is an important way to ensure food safety. Traditional food safety monitoring systems primarily rely on professional equipment and operation, which are both expensive and time-consuming. Therefore, it is of great practical significance to seek simple, fast, and widely applicable food safety testing methods. Microfluidics-integrated biosensors have the advantages of miniaturization, high throughput, rapid integration, and fewer consumables. In recent years, they have steadily evolved and progressively been introduced in different fields, and a series of important advances have been made. Scope and approach: In this paper, the progress of the application of microfluidics to the detection of foodborne pathogenic bacteria in recent years is introduced, and the advantages and disadvantages of microfluidic devices with different detection signals (e.g., amperometric, impedance, voltammetric, fluorescence, colorimetric, Raman, and plasma sensors) and the application of the CRISPR-Cas system in the microfluidic biosensing platform is introduced as a promising microfluidic detection application. Additionally, their application prospects and future trends in the use of lab-on-a-chip technology for foodborne pathogenic bacteria are discussed. Key findings and conclusion: Microfluidic devices can effectively, rapidly, and accurately determine the species and quantity of foodborne pathogens. The development of the next generation of microfluidic products should consider the convenience of data storage and transmission, detection sensitivity and accuracy. The developed methods and devices will be able to yield results from sample processing and detect multiple objects without cross-contamination, to more effectively exert the advantages of microfluidic chips in rapid field testing.