IMMOBILIZATION MATRICES AND TYROSINASE BIOSENSORS FOR DETECTION OF PHENOLIC COMPOUNDS: A REVIEW

Phenols are organic aromatic compounds containing one or more hydroxyl groups and are being continuously discharged into the environment because of human interference. Stated to be quite relevant in human health; various methods have been devised for their detection. Though various conventional methods have been optimised, they are both tedious and time consuming. Biosensors, on the other hand, provide very fast and sensitive detection of the polyphenolic compounds, most of them being based upon phenol oxidising enzymes. Enzymes such as tyrosinase, laccase etc., have been in continuous use for biosensor fabrication experiments for determination of polyphenolic compounds. Variety of biosensors have been developed using different types of immobilization matrices and different types of transducers. The paper reviews various immobilization matrices used for designing tyrosinase based biosensors developed for the determination of phenolic compounds under lab conditions and in real samples.