Design and function of boronic acid-based polyamidoamine dendrimer probes for bacteria recognition

Selective bacterial recognition and early diagnosis are urgently required to address the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance and are crucial for achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs). Saccharide recognition is a promising solution because bacterial surfaces are composed of specific polysaccharides. In this study, we summarize our investigations into the use of boronic acid analogs for bacterial recognition, which shows potential for broad applications in various bacterial detection methods using nanoprobes. Methods were developed for the convenient, sensitive, and selective recognition of bacteria using spherical poly(amidoamine) dendrimers functionalized with boronic acids. We evaluated various measurement protocols (turbidity and fluorescence), interactions with bacterial surfaces (electrostatic and hydrophobic), recognition targets, and the further development of ditopic and benzoxaborole-based probes. As these methods require less than ten min, boronic acid-based recognition could serve as a powerful tool for rapid and simple clinical applications in the future. We believe that our study makes a significant contribution to the field, as the findings can be effectively applied to other studies involving boronic acid compounds or targeting bacterial surface saccharides.