Electrochemical DNA hybridization sensors applied to real and complex biological samples

DNA hybridization biosensors, also known as genosensors, are analytical devices for the detection of specific DNA "target" sequences in solution, upon hybridization of the targets with complementary "probes" immobilized on a solid substrate. Electrochemical genosensors hold great promise to serve as devices suitable for point-of-care diagnostics and multiplexed platforms for fast, simple and inexpensive nucleic acids analysis. Although a lot of progress has been made in the past few years, the performance of genosensors in complex biological samples has been assayed in only a small fraction of published research articles. This review covers such a group of reports, from the year 2000 onwards. Special attention is played in the nature and complexity of the samples and in the way matrix effects were treated and specificity controls were performed. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.