Human urine samples are non-invasive, readily available, and contain several components that can provide useful indicators of the health status of patients. Hence, urine is a desirable and important template to aid in the diagnosis of common clinical conditions. Conventional methods such as dipstick tests, urine culture, and urine microscopy are commonly used for urinalysis. Among them, the dipstick test is undoubtedly the most popular owing to its ease of use, low cost, and quick response. Despite these advantages, the dipstick test has limitations in terms of sensitivity, selectivity, reusability, and quantitative evaluation of diseases. Various biosensor technologies give it the potential for being developed into point-of-care (POC) applications by overcoming these limitations of the dipstick test. Here, we present a review of the biosensor technologies available to identify urine-based biomarkers that are typically detected by the dipstick test and discuss the present limitations and challenges that future development for their translation into POC applications for urinalysis.
Funding: This research was supported by the Korea Electric Power Corporation (Grant number R21XO01-20), and a research grant (NRF-2020R1F1A1073564, NRF-2021R1A4A1033155 and NRF-2021R1A6A1A10044950) from the National Research Foundation (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, the Ministry of Education and ICT, Korea. This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant and Commercialization Promotion Agency for R&D Outcomes (COMPA) (2021M3A9G1015618). This work was also supported by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (Program No. 21153MFDS431).
