Label-free electrochemical (EC) protein biosensors that derive electrical signal from redox-active amino acid (AA) residues can avoid disruption of delicate protein structures, and thus provide a great opportunity to reveal valid information about protein functions. However, the challenge is that such a signal is usually very limited due to the sluggish EC reaction of free AAs on most common electrodes and slow electron-transfer rates from the deeply-buried AA residues in a protein to the electrode. Signal enhancement therefore becomes crucial. We first survey recent progress in this area.We present a signal-enhancing system that relies on the electrocatalytic oxidation of tyrosine mediated by osmium bipyridine or phenoxazine complexes. We describe several applications of label-free protein EC biosensors based on this detection principle for the analysis of protein functions, including the monitoring of protein-conformation change, study of ligand/protein binding, and detection of protein oxidative damage and protein phosphorylation.We describe related works on protein-function analysis using other signal-enhancing methods. The results suggest that labelfree EC protein biosensors are suitable for the rapid survey of protein functions due to their fast response, ease of integration, cost effectiveness and convenience. Proof-of-concept work on the application of our system is paving the way for bio-analytical detections and protein-function analysis in future work. ª