Single-Probe-Based Colorimetric and Photothermal Dual-Mode Identification of Multiple Bacteria

Effective identification of multiple pathogenic bacteria in unknown samples is important for disease prevention and control but remains a challenge yet. A single-mode array-based sensing approach is simple and sensitive, but it usually relies on the use of multiple cross-reactive receptors to construct sensor arrays, which is cumbersome and insufficiently accurate. Here, we developed a sensor array with colorimetric and photothermal dual mode of differentiating multiple pathogenic bacteria. The sensor array was based on boronic acid-functionalized Au-Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles (BA-GMNPs), which not only possess localized surface plasmon resonance properties, showing a burgundy color similar to that of AuNPs, but also exhibit mild superparamagnetism, allowing for the differentiation of bacteria before and after binding to the nanoparticles. Immobilization of BA-GMNPs on the bacterial cell surface by covalent bonding would diminish NaCl-induced assembly of BA-GMNPs. Different BA-GMNPs@bacterial complexes differed in their ability to resist assembly and produced different colorimetric and photothermal response signals. A unique molecular fingerprint of each bacterium was obtained by linear discriminant analysis of the response patterns, demonstrating an effective differentiation among the six species studied. Compared with single-mode sensing arrays based on multiple receptors, this method only requires the preparation of a single nanomaterial, which produces two signal outputs for the identification of multiple bacteria with better differentiation. It can distinguish not only multiple pathogenic bacteria but also Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria, and, more importantly, it can perform preliminary discrimination of unknown samples.