As a kind of tiny gold particles at diameters of 1-100 nm, gold nanoparticles with special physical and chemical properties have been widely used for biological detection as marker, biological probe, carrier, sensor, and so on. In this paper, we summarize the advantages of gold nanoparticles compared with other markers, review representative biological detection methods using gold nanoparticles, and analyze the limitation of these methods as well as the development trend of gold nanoparticles used for biological detection. ©...