Abstract:

In recent years, excessive heavy metals in foods pose a threat to human health, so the development of techniques
to detect heavy metals in foods has become an important research task. Although traditional techniques for heavy metal
detection have high selectivity and high sensitivity, a simple, fast, effective and inexpensive method for rapid detection of
food safety is still highly desired. Aptamers (aptamer) is a piece of single-stranded DNA or RNA sequence or oligonucleotide
fragments obtained by in vitro selection (SELEX, systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment), which is
specifically bound to protein or smaller molecules. As a target molecule with high sensitivity, high specificity and good
stability, in recent years, it has been widely used in the field of food safety detection. This article reviews the progress made
in recent years in applying aptamer technology for the detection of heavy metals such as Hg2+, As3+ and Pb2+ in foods and
future prospects are discussed.

Key words: heavy metal, aptamer, systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment, detection