Kyung Jin
Lee‡
abc,
Wang Sik
Lee‡
bc,
Ahreum
Hwang
bd,
Jeong
Moon
b,
Taejoon
Kang
abc,
Kyoungsook
Park
*a and
Jinyoung
Jeong
*abc
aBioNano Health Guard Research Center, 125 Gwahak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea. E-mail: jyjeong@kribb.re.kr; marsp@kribb.re.kr
bHazards Monitoring Bionano Research Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, 125 Gwahak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea
cDepartment of Nanobiotechnology, KRIBB School of Biotechnology, University of Science and Technology, Daejeon 34113, Republic of Korea
dDepartment of Chemistry, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 291 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea
First published on 24th November 2017
We demonstrate simple and rapid bacterial detection using a nuclease-responsive DNA probe. The probe consisting of a fluorescent dye and a quencher at the 5′ and 3′ termini, respectively, was designed to be cleaved by nucleases such as endonucleases, exonucleases, and DNases, which are released from bacteria using an optimized lysis buffer. The fluorescence signal of the cleaved DNA probe correlates with the number of Gram-negative Escherichia coli and Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus, and the detection limit was 103 CFU for E. coli and 104 CFU for S. aureus. Moreover, this method is specific for live bacteria and takes just one minute to get the signal including sample collection. These features make the present bacterial detection method a powerful on-site bacterial contamination assay which is simple, rapid, and quantitative.
For bacterial detection, traditional culture-based methods are commonly used, but they take several days and require specialized equipment and species-specific protocols.12,13 Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based methods are another conventional system with high sensitivity and specificity. However, PCR has drawbacks including a long detection time and the need for specialized equipment.6,14,15 Recently, an adenosine triphosphate (ATP)-based bioluminescence technique has been commercially used for rapid monitoring of environmental bacterial contamination.16 ATP is a common biological energy source that is present in various microorganisms at approximately 0.47 fg per cell. ATP in bacterial cells can be catalyzed by luciferase, producing oxyluciferase, adenosine monophosphate (AMP), and bioluminescence.17 Therefore, the bioluminescent signal is proportional to the ATP concentration and indicates the amount of bacteria in the sample.18–20 ATP systems have been employed to measure surface cleanliness including the presence of organic debris and microbial contamination.21 However, the degree of contamination is often overestimated because ATP-based assays have difficulty in distinguishing live and dead bacteria.22,23 Moreover, non-bacterial ATP and extracellular ATP of organic debris could induce false-positive signals.
Herein, we developed a novel bacterial sensing method by using a nuclease-responsive DNA probe. In general, bacteria make various nucleases to defend against the damage caused by foreign DNA, UV, and oxidative stress.24 Based on this fact, we proposed to quantify the degree of microbial contamination by measuring the activity of nucleases released from microbial cells. In order to measure the activity of nucleases, we adopted the fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) phenomenon of an oligonucleotide containing a fluorophore and a quencher. We developed a well-designed DNA probe which can be cleaved by nucleases efficiently and optimized the lysis buffer carefully. Therefore, the present nuclease-based bacterial assay can detect Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) quantitatively in one minute. Furthermore, this method can distinguish live and dead bacteria, preventing false-positive signals unlike the ATP-based assay. For the real-world application of the developed method, several environmental samples were collected and tested. We successfully detected bacteria from environmental samples and the results agreed well with the commercial ATP-based assay. We anticipate that the newly developed simple and rapid bacterial method will practically be used for on-site bacterial contamination assays soon.
To prepare dead bacterial samples, each of the bacterial cell pellets (108 CFU) was resuspended in 100 μL of PBS for heat treatment or in 100 μL of 70% ethanol (EtOH). Resuspended bacteria in PBS were treated by heating at 100 °C for 30 min in a heating block. Bacterial cells in 70% EtOH were incubated at RT for 2 h. Ten microliters of dead samples were treated with 90 μL of bacterial lysis buffer at RT for 20 s. And then, the lysates were diluted ten-fold in reaction buffer. One hundred microliters of reaction samples (106 CFU rxn−1) were mixed with 10 μL of 2 μM nuclease-responsive DNA probe. The fluorescence intensity was measured using a multimode microplate reader.
Fig. 1 Schematic illustration of bacterial detection using the nuclease-responsive DNA probe. Blue marks in the DNA probe sequence indicate the target points of exodonuclease and endonuclease. |
For this method, we prepared an optimized lysis buffer containing CHAPS (3-((3-cholamidopropyl) dimethylammonio)-1-propanesulfonate) and Triton X-100 (t-octylphenoxypolyethoxyethanol). Both CHAPS and Triton X-100 are mild detergents, minimizing damage to bacterial proteins. In particular, CHAPS is a zwitterionic detergent that is incorporated into the membrane surface and does not penetrate deeply into the bilayer. Furthermore, Triton X-100 is a non-ionic detergent with a strong membrane-perturbing effect, attributed to its bulky polar moiety, which causes bacterial lysis in a short amount of time.25,26 Moreover, to lyse both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria at once, lysozyme and lysostaphin were included in the lysis buffer. Lysostaphin is widely known as an antimicrobial enzyme that cleaves the crosslinking pentaglycine bridges in the cell wall of staphylococci.27 Thus, the combination of two detergents and lysogenic enzymes in the lysis buffer increases the bacterial lysis efficiency. To confirm that the cells were thoroughly lysed, standard plate counting methods were used. The lysate was spread on a LB agar plate and incubated at 37 °C for 16 h. The number of colonies was dramatically reduced after lysis for 20 s; thus, the bacteria were thoroughly lysed in the lysis buffer (Fig. S1†). The SEM images in Fig. S2† also support the notion that bacterial lysis was efficient in the lysis buffer. Both E. coli and S. aureus were clearly observed with their characteristic shapes before lysis. However, only bacterial cell debris was visible after lysis, indicating that the bacteria were damaged and dead.
Prior to the detection of bacteria, we measured the fluorescence of the DNA probe with various nucleases including endonuclease, exonuclease, and DNase I with each working solution using a multimode microplate reader in wavelength scanning mode. Fig. 2a shows that the fluorescence of the DNA probe increased after treatment of these nucleases. In particular, the fluorescence of the probe cleaved with DNase I exhibits a very high signal, although the concentration of the enzyme used was one fifth lower than the other enzymes because the fluorescence signal at the same concentration was saturated. It is assumed that this probe is comprised of mainly double-strand DNA which DNase I can cleave and a short length of mismatch and a blunt or stick end group on which endonuclease and exonuclease may work. The fragmentation of the DNA probe by nuclease was confirmed by gel-based degradation analysis. The images of the DNA gel were obtained using gel documentation under UV exposure for obtaining the image of the DNA ladder and using a chemiluminescence imaging system under 485 nm excitation for the fluorescence image of the fragmented probe by nucleases. As seen in Fig. 2c, the band of the probe with DNase I in lane 3 was clearly seen near 10 bp. The band of the probe with Mung bean endonuclease was also seen in lane 2 very weakly. As was revealed by the fluorescence spectra of the probe with the same nucleases, the gel data of the DNA probe cleaved by nucleases consistently support the fact that the probe is mainly cleaved by DNase I and partially by endonuclease and exonuclease.
We also tested the enzyme activity of these nucleases using the DNA probe either in the working buffer or the reaction buffer prepared in this work to confirm the activities of nucleases under these conditions. We observed that the activity of DNase I was similar both in working buffer and reaction buffer. Otherwise, the signals of Mung bean endonuclease and lambda exonuclease in each reaction buffer were half or less than those in working buffer (data not shown). It indicates that the probe can work with various nucleases in the presence of their working solution, but may not work with some nucleases in the presence of reaction buffer.
As a proof-of-concept, the fluorescence of the DNA probe was measured in the presence of bacteria (i.e., 106 CFU rxn−1 of E. coli and S. aureus) using a multimode microplate reader in wavelength scanning mode. In Fig. 2b, the fluorescence of the probe with E. coli and S. aureus showed a significant signal at 520 nm, indicating that the probe was cleaved by nucleases from the bacteria. Although the fluorescence signal observed was different for E. coli and S. aureus at the same concentration, assuming that the nucleases from S. aureus might have different activities from those from E. coli, the probe appears to work for both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. Moreover, a mixture containing half the concentration of bacteria exhibited the predicted intensity, indicating that the detectable fluorescence correlates with the bacterial concentration. The cleavage of the probe by bacteria was also confirmed by using gel experiment. In Fig. 2d, the DNA gel image shows the DNA fragments cleaved by E. coli and S. aureus in lanes 2 and 3, respectively. The DNA cleaved by E. coli was approximately 20 base pairs, whereas the DNA cleaved by S. aureus was closer to 10 base pairs. Furthermore, the DNA bands cleaved by the mixture of bacteria were in the same location for each species in lane 4. These results indicate that E. coli and S. aureus express different nucleases as it is known that different bacterial strains express different types of restriction endonucleases to defend against viruses.28 The DNA gel image under 485 nm excitation also clearly showed that the fluorophores from the cleaved DNA migrated to the same position under UV illumination. Moreover, in the lane containing the E. coli and S. aureus mixture, two bands located at 10 bps and 20 bps were shown, indicating that the probe was cleaved by each of the bacteria. Meanwhile, the lanes without the probe or with the probe only (36-mer) as controls did not show fluorescence under UV or 485 nm excitation, indicating that the fluorophore (FAM) was completely quenched by BHQ-1.
To determine the limit of bacterial detection, the concentration-dependent fluorescence signal was measured from 0 to 107 CFU rxn−1 for each bacterium. Fig. 3a shows that the fluorescence signal gradually increases from 102 to 104 CFU rxn−1, and the response to E. coli dramatically increases at 107 CFU rxn−1. For S. aureus, although the fluorescence signal was relatively lower compared to that of E. coli, the cell number-dependent fluorescence signal gradually increased up to 107 CFU rxn−1 (Fig. 3b). Based on these data, the detection limit of this method is 103 CFU for E. coli and 104 CFU for S. aureus. To compare this detection limit with other methods, we performed the cell number-dependent measurement using ATP-based bioluminescence (Fig. S3†). Although the bioluminescence signal was seen in a low cell number (103–104 CFU), it was clearly detectable at 105 CFU for both E. coli and S. aureus and the signal dramatically increased 4-fold at 107 CFU bacteria. In fact, FRET-based sensing methods are widely used for the detection of bacteria and bacterial enzymes.29–33 However, some challenges such as development of an efficient DNA probe and reduction of the reaction time still remain for simple and rapid bacterial detection. This result indicates that the nuclease-based method is a quantitative measurement for practical bacterial detection with sensitive detection limit compared to the ATP-based method.
To evaluate the specificity for the detection of live bacteria, dry heating and a chemical disinfectant were applied in this study as simple and economical sterilization methods. Ethanol as a well-known chemical disinfectant is widely used in hospitals and food processing. To prepare dead bacterial samples, 106 CFU of E. coli and S. aureus were inactivated by heating at 100 °C for 30 min or treating with 70% EtOH for 2 h. The dead bacteria were added in lysis buffer and mixed with the DNA probe. After reaction with the DNA probe, the fluorescence intensity was measured. As shown in Fig. 4a, the fluorescence signal from live E. coli was significantly higher than the signal observed after heating or 70% EtOH treatment. For S. aureus, the fluorescence was relatively high in live cells while the signal from the cells treated with 70% EtOH was almost 10 times lower (Fig. 4b). Interestingly, the fluorescence intensity in heat-treated S. aureus was slightly higher than that of the 70% ETOH-treated one, assuming that heat resistant nucleases remaining intact in dead bacteria might react with the DNA probe.34 In the same manner, we also investigated a live bacteria-selective detection using the ATP-based bioluminescence method and there was no difference between live and dead bacteria for both E. coli and S. aureus. Moreover, the signal of heat-treated bacteria was more than 10 times higher than live bacteria (Fig. S4†). It is assumed that since ATP is relatively stable compared to other enzymes such as nucleases under the sterilization methods, dead bacteria are still detectable by the ATP-based method as we confirmed that bacteria after heating or treatment with 70% EtOH were dead using the standard plate counting method (Fig. S5†). Based on this result, the nuclease-based method is advantageous for live bacteria-selective detection.
Fig. 4 Selective detection of live and dead bacteria using the nuclease-responsive DNA probe in the presence of (a) E. coli and (b) S. aureus. The number of bacteria was 1 × 106 CFU rxn−1 for each. |
Finally, we investigated the detection of bacteria from environmental samples such as doorknobs, tables, desks, and hands and compared these results with the commercial ATP-based bioluminescence method. As seen in Fig. 5, the signal pattern of bacterial detection between the two methods was similar in each location, indicating that this system is comparable to a conventional ATP-based method. Moreover, the measurement time using this method was about one minute from sample collecting to obtaining the signal due to the rapid nuclease activity with the help of an optimized lysis buffer. This feature will make this method a practical assay for on-site environmental bacterial detection. There are various bacterial detection methods including PCR, immunology-based, and ATP-based methods and we compared these methods with the nuclease-based method studied in this work (Table S1). Combining the detection limit, time for assay, and selectivity, the nuclease-based method can be an alternative bacterial detection method.
Fig. 5 Comparison of bacterial detection in various environments between nuclease-based and ATP-based methods. |
Footnotes |
† Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c7an01384a |
‡ These authors contributed equally to this work. |
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2018 |