Electrochemical Biosensors for Probing of Protease Activity and Screening of Protease Inhibitors

Abstract

Protease is one of the most important physiological enzymes because proteolytic processing is the final step in the expression of the activity of a great variety of proteins. Standard assays for proteases include those based on radioisotopes or on fluorogenic substrates. In recent years, electrochemical biosensors have been shown to be a promising alternative to mass-and fluorescence-based sensors for the specific detection of protein, DNA and small biomolecules in view of their high sensitivity, simplicity, rapid response, and compatibility with miniaturization. In this review, we summarized the strategies for development of electrochemical biosensors to detect proteases and the inhibitors.