Title:Tyrosinase Electrochemical Biosensors Monitoring Medicinally Significant Substances
Volume: 25
Issue: 33
Author(s): Milan Sýs and Karel Vytřas*
Affiliation:
- Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemical Technology, University of Pardubice, Studentska 573, 532 10 Pardubice,Czech Republic
Keywords:
Biosensor, tyrosinase, electroanalysis, medicine, diagnosis, biological markers.
Abstract: Nowadays in biosensing, development of analytical techniques is focused on improvement
for monitoring biologically active species in living organisms, especially in
real-time analysis. This article provides an overview of applications of electrochemical tyrosinase
biosensors in the analysis of medicinally significant substances, also known as biomarkers.
At the beginning, special attention is paid to characterisation of the tyrosinase enzyme,
explanation of reaction mechanisms of tyrosinase with various types of electrochemical
transducers and techniques needed for stable immobilization of this biocatalyst on the transducer
surface used. In this case, amperometric transducers represent the most frequently used
type of electrochemical sensing because they usually provide sensitive current response to the
presence of analyte in the sample. Many scientific works suggest that these very selective
bioanalytical devices could find application in the clinical diagnosis of various serious diseases
because they represent the effective analytical tools for diagnosis of neurodegenerative
disorders, detection of microbial pathogens responsible for foodborne illness and diagnosis of
cytopathology, especially melanoma cancer. Additionally, various kinds of electrochemical
tyrosinase biosensors are presented which were developed to determine the catalytic activity
of other enzymes significant for human metabolism, medicaments and their metabolic products,
several hormones, amino acids and proteins. Despite all of their advantages, it is necessary
to state that tyrosinase biosensors are still not used in the routine laboratory practice due
to their relatively short service life which is not longer than one month unfortunately.
Never-ending development of catalytic polymers imitating the tyrosinase active site could be
one of ways to solve this serious drawback.
