Structural Changes as a Tool for Affinity Recognition: Conformational Switch Biosensing

Biosensors draw inspiration from natural chemosensing based on molecular switches between different bond-induced conformational states. Proteins and nucleic acids can be adapted into switch-based biosensors with a wide plethora of different configurations, taking advantage of the variety of transduction systems, from optical to electrochemical or electrochemiluminescence, as well as from nanomaterials for signal augmentation. This review reports the latest trends in conformational switch biosensors reported in the literature in the last 10 years, focusing on the main representative and recent examples of protein-based switching biosensors, DNA nanomachines, and structure-switched aptamers being applied for the detection of a wide range of target analytes with interest in biomedical and agro-environmental sectors.