Recent advances in bacteriophage-based methods for bacteria detection

Fast and reliable bacteria detection is crucial for lowering the socioeconomic burden related to bacterial infections (e.g., in healthcare, industry or security). Bacteriophages (i.e., viruses with bacterial hosts) pose advantages such as great specificity, robustness, toughness and cheap preparation, making them popular biorecognition elements in biosensors and other assays for bacteria detection. There are several possible designs of bacteriophage-based biosensors. Here, we focus on developments based on whole virions as recognition agents. We divide the review into sections dealing with phage lysis as an analytical signal, phages as capturing elements in assays and phage-based sensing layers, putting the main focus on development reported within the past three years but without omitting the fundamentals.