Recent Advantages of Chemiluminescence-Based Fully Automated Microfluidic Devices in the Detection of Pathogenic Microorganisms

The integration of chemiluminescence and microfluidics has led to significant advances in pathogen detection and represents an excellent platform to build fast, sensitive and miniaturized diagnostic tools. This review provides a comprehensive overview of recent advances in chemiluminescent microfluidic biosensors, describing device integration, signal amplification approaches, and automation for assay performance. With developments including CRISPR-Cas detection, enzyme catalysis, and amplification approaches for isothermal amplification and AI-integrated fluid control, the enhancements offered through next-generation detection systems support improvements in detection sensitivity and throughput. Recent products for pathogens, including E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes, and respiratory viruses, are also discussed with a focus on lab-on-a-disc and smartphone-based diagnostics. Detected limits and/or reproducibility are analyzed, where relevant, to understand performance and considerations for subsequent implementation at scale and real-world applications. Finally, it considers future perspectives in the field with a discussion on standardization of assays, device fabrication costs and regulation, routine (point-of-care) use of chemiluminescent microfluidic systems, and write-up optimization of modules or diagnostic approaches. Considering the above, chemiluminescent microfluidic systems are positioned and act as game-changers or valuable tools for global health surveillance, food safety, and the practice of personalized medicine, providing transformative diagnostics in centralized laboratory settings and low-resource settings.