Dynamic multispectral detection of bacteria with nanoplasmonic markers

Abstract

Culture-based diagnosis of bacterial diseases is a time-consuming technique that can lead not only to antibiotic resistance or bacterial mutation but also to fast-spreading diseases. Such mutations contribute to the fast deterioration of the patient's health and in some cases the death depending on the complexity of the infection. There is great interest in developing widely available molecular-level diagnostics that provide accurate and rapid diagnosis at the individual level and that do not require sophisticated analysis or expensive equipment. Here, we present a promising analytical approach to detect the presence of pathogenic bacteria based on their dynamic properties enhanced with nanoplasmonic biomarkers. These markers have shown greater photostability and biocompatibility compared to fluorescent markers and quantum dots, and serve as both a selective marker and an amplifying agent in optical biomedical detection. We show that a simple dark-field side- illumination technique can provide sufficiently high-contrast dynamic images of individual plasmonic nanoparticles attached to Escherichia coli (E. coli) for multiplex biodetection. Combined with numerical dynamic filtering, our proposed system shows great potential for the deployment of portable commercial devices for rapid diagnostic tests available to physicians in emergency departments, clinics and public hospitals as point-of-care devices.