Sensitivity and dynamics of bioreceptor-based biosensors.

Bioreceptors can provide the basis for specific and sensitive biosensors. There are many sources of bioreceptors in nature for biochemicals of interest in biotechnology and biomedicine. These bioreceptors (antibodies, enzymes, membrane proteins, binding proteins) can be modified and produced in large quantities using modern biotechnological techniques. The characteristics of the biosensor can also be fine-tuned by modifying the structure of the analog-analyte, which will also provide several orders of magnitude of range sensitivity with a given bioreceptor. The ultimate sensitivity of the biosensor may be limited by the dissociation kinetics of the reaction between analyte and bioreceptor because there is a trade-off between sensitivity and sensor response rate to changes in analyte concentration.