Abstract
Antibiotics are a category of chemical compounds used to treat bacterial infections and are widely applied in cultivation, animal husbandry, aquaculture, and pharmacy. Currently, residual antibiotics and their metabolites pose a potential risk of allergic reactions, bacterial resistance, and increased cancer incidence. Residual antibiotics and the resulting bacterial antibiotic resistance have been recognized as a global challenge that has attracted increasing attention. Therefore, monitoring antibiotics is a critical way to limit the ecological risks from antibiotic pollution. Accordingly, it is desirable to devise new analytical platforms to achieve efficient antibiotic detection with excellent sensitivity and specificity. Quantum dots (QDs) are regarded as an ideal material for use in the development of antibiotic detection biosensors. In this review, we characterize different types of QDs, such as silicon, chalcogenide, carbon, and other doped QDs, and summarize the trends in QD-based antibiotic detection. QD-based sensing applications are classified according to their recognition strategies, including molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs), aptamers, and immunosensors. We discuss the advantages of QD-derived antibiotic sensors, including low cost, good sensitivity, excellent stability, and fast response, and illustrate the current challenges in this field.