SERS Detection of Multiple Antimicrobial-Resistant Pathogens Using Nanosensors

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Analytical Chemistry
• Microbiology

Background:

• Global rise in infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance necessitates advanced pathogen detection.
• Existing methods for bacterial detection can be slow, complex, or lack sensitivity.
• Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) offers high sensitivity, selectivity, and multiplexing for biosensing applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel bionanosensor for rapid isolation and detection of multiple bacterial pathogens.
• To utilize magnetic separation and SERS for efficient bacterial capture and identification.
• To demonstrate the sensor's capability for both single and multiplexed pathogen detection.

Main Methods:

• Development of a bionanosensor using lectin-functionalized magnetic nanoparticles for bacterial capture.
• Employing SERS-active nanoparticles functionalized with strain-specific antibodies for detection.
• Utilizing magnetic separation for sample enrichment and laser interrogation for optical detection.
• Validation with three key bacterial pathogens: Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Main Results:

• Successful isolation and detection of individual bacterial pathogens down to 10^1 CFU/mL.
• Demonstrated multiplexed detection and identification of a mixture of three bacterial strains in a single sample.
• Principal component analysis confirmed the accuracy of triplex SERS detection.
• The bionanosensor provided rapid and sensitive discrimination of bacterial pathogens.

Conclusions:

• The developed multiplexed bionanosensor enables fast and sensitive identification of bacterial pathogens.
• This technology shows significant potential for point-of-care diagnostics and biomedical applications.
• The combination of magnetic separation and SERS offers a powerful platform for infectious disease detection.