Abstract Rapid, sensitive and specific methods for detection of pathogenic bacteria are critical in diagnosis of their infections. Recent advances in the field of nanotechnology have led to the development of biosensors which are capable of performing complex molecular assays required for characterization of many infectious diseases like salmonellosis. Biosensors are defined as analytical devices that transforms the biological response by incorporating biorecognition elements e.g., antibodies, enzymes, nucleic acids, aptamers, bacteriophages, organelles, microorganisms, etc. with a physical transducer including optical, electrochemical, or mass-based transducers, to generate a measurable signal. Different biosensors have been designed based on the variety of nanoparticles (NPs) such as gold nanoparticles, magnetic nanoparticles and quantum dots. In this context, Salmonella has been detected using various means including antibodies, antimicrobial peptides, bacteriophages, and DNA probes coupled with optical, electrochemical, and mass sensitive transduction techniques. Regarding high sensitivity and detection capacity of electrochemical sensors, these are among the widely used biosensing systems for Salmonella identification. A disposable electrochemical sensor has been developed for Salmonella detection based on a DNA hybridization reaction using thiolated DNA capture probes. The hybridization event is then detected using the ruthenium complex as electrochemical indicator. Such biosensing system is inexpensive, robust, fast rapid and relatively simple to operate compared to other analytical methods, while, conventional pathogen detection assays including microbiological and biochemical identification are time-consuming and laborious. Hence, researches on development of more effective biosensors are continuing to achieve biosensors that require less dedicated equipment to identify bacterial infections in the near future.
