Biosensors and Nanotheranostics
Bionanotechnology, Drug Delivery, Therapeutics | online ISSN 3064-7789
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Volume 4 Number 1 2025
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)
Advancing Electrochemical Biosensing Through Microfluidic SingleCell Platforms: A Systematic Review and Meta Analysis of Sensitivity, Throughput, and Clinical Translation
Lamiah Hossain 1*
Biosensors and Nanotheranostics 4 (1) 1-8 https://doi.org/10.25163/biosensors.4110710
Submitted: 10 May 2025 Revised: 05 July 2025 Accepted: 12 July 2025 Published: 14 July 2025
Abstract
Electrochemical biosensors integrated with microfluidic platforms have revolutionized single-cell analysis, enabling unprecedented sensitivity, selectivity, and throughput for diverse biological and clinical applications. Traditional bulk assays often mask cellular heterogeneity, whereas single-cell approaches reveal unique biochemical behaviors critical for disease diagnostics, drug screening, and environmental monitoring. This systematic review and meta-analysis synthesize evidence from studies published before 2022 to evaluate the performance of electrochemical biosensors in microfluidic systems, focusing on their detection limits, operational stability, throughput, and clinical translational potential. Across 30 studies, key factors influencing analytical performance included biorecognition element immobilization strategies, microfabricated trap geometries, fluidic control precision, and hybrid detection schemes. Hydrodynamic, acoustic, dielectrophoretic, and optical trapping mechanisms were compared for cell capture efficiency, revealing trade-offs between throughput and cell viability. Integration of amperometric, fluorescence, and mass spectrometric detection further enhanced the quantitative and qualitative analysis of intracellular metabolites and secreted biomolecules. Meta-analytic synthesis demonstrated that optimized microfluidic-biosensor platforms could detect target analytes at sub-picomolar concentrations while maintaining high reproducibility across single-cell populations. However, standardization of performance metrics and reporting remains limited, impeding direct comparison and broader clinical adoption. Our review highlights critical design parameters and identifies technological gaps that must be addressed to translate these platforms from proof-of-concept studies to routine analytical and diagnostic tools. By providing a comprehensive assessment of microfluidic electrochemical biosensors for single-cell analysis, this study offers guidance for future research and development in precision biosensing.
Keywords: Electrochemical biosensors, Microfluidics, Single-cell analysis, Liquid biopsy, Amperometry, Cell trapping, Clinical diagnostics
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