Abstract: Food flavor is an important attribute of high-quality foods. The consumers’ preference for foods is largely determined by taste and smell perception. The traditional food flavor evaluation methods include sensory evaluation, smart devices and instrumental analysis methods. Sensory evaluation is reliable but prone to taste fatigue and individual subjectivity. The structure of smart devices is complex, and there are some differences between the working principle and the actual taste transmission, resulting in limited applications. The cell-based biosensor is a new method to detect and evaluate food flavor that integrates living cells as sensitive elements, transducers and signal processing devices. They show the advantages of high sensitivity, good selectivity and fast response and have become a hotspot in the field of biosensors. Based on a review of recent research achievements, this paper briefly introduces the concept and basic structure of cell-based biosensors, and focuses on the results of research in the field of taste and smell evaluation and their application. The perception and transmission mechanisms in practical application are elucidated, and the flavor perception information for foods that has been obtained by researchers is summarized. Finally, the problems existing in the development of cell-based biosensors are discussed, and possible future trends are projected in food flavor evaluation.

Key words: food flavor; cell-based sensor; taste; smell