Magnetic Latex Particles in Nanobiotechnologies for Biomedical Diagnostic Applications: State of the Art

Summary: The main objective of this short state-of-the art is to report on the preparation of reactive magnetic latexes for biomedical applications. The main advantage of colloidal magnetic particles is their separation upon applying an external permanent magnetic field. Then magnetic particles bearing reactive groups or specific receptors are used in biomedical diagnosis such as immunoassay, molecular diagnosis for specific capture and detection of nucleic acids, viruses extraction and detection, cell sorting and more recently in numerous biotechnological applications. The preparation of magnetic latexes requires the use of well-defined iron oxide nanoparticles in appropriate medium. In this direction, aqueous ferrofluids were largely used to prepare functional magnetic latexes, whereas few approaches have been devoted to the use of organic ferrofluids.