Application of Microfluidics for Bacterial Identification

Bacterial infections continue to pose serious public health challenges. Though anti-bacterial therapeutics are effective remedies for treating these infections, the emergence of antibiotic resistance has imposed new challenges to treatment. Often, there is a delay in prescribing antibiotics at initial symptom presentation as it can be challenging to clinically differentiate bacterial infections from other organisms (e.g., viruses) causing infection. Moreover, bacterial infections can arise from food, water, or other sources. These challenges have demonstrated the need for rapid identification of bacteria in liquids, food, clinical spaces, and other environments. Conventional methods of bacterial identification rely on culture-based approaches which require long processing times and higher pathogen concentration thresholds. In the past few years, microfluidic devices paired with various bacterial identification methods have garnered attention for addressing the limitations of conventional methods and demonstrating feasibility for rapid bacterial identification with lower biomass thresholds. However, such culture-free methods often require integration of multiple steps from sample preparation to measurement. Research interest in using microfluidic methods for bacterial identification is growing; therefore, this review article is a summary of current advancements in this field with a focus on comparing the efficacy of polymerase chain reaction (PCR), loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), and emerging spectroscopic methods.