Mechanochemical Sensing: A Biomimetic Sensing Strategy.

Existing biosensors employ two major components: analyte recognition and signal transduction. Although specificity is achieved through analyte recognition, sensitivity is usually enhanced through a chemical amplification stage that couples the two main units in a sensor. Although highly sensitive, the extra chemical amplification stage complicates the sensing protocol. In addition, it separates the two elements spatiotemporally, reducing the real-time response of the biosensor. In this review, we discuss the new mechanochemical biosensors that employ mechanochemical coupling strategies to overcome these issues. By monitoring changes in the mechanical properties of a single-molecule template upon analyte binding, single-molecule sensitivity is reached. As chemical amplification becomes unnecessary in this single-molecule mechanochemical sensing (SMMS) strategy, real-time sensing is achieved.