Nano Express
Aptasensors for rapid detection of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella typhimurium
- † Equal contributors
1 Key Laboratory of Laboratory Medicine, Ministry of Education, Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Medical Genetics, Wenzhou Medical College, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, 325035, China
2 Department of Laboratory Medicine, The University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, 77030, USA
Nanoscale Research Letters 2012, 7:658 doi:10.1186/1556-276X-7-658
Published: 29 November 2012Abstract
Herein we reported the development of aptamer-based biosensors (aptasensors) based on label-free aptamers and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) for detection of Escherichia coli (E. coli) O157:H7 and Salmonella typhimurium. Target bacteria binding aptamers are adsorbed on the surface of unmodified AuNPs to capture target bacteria, and the detection was accomplished by target bacteria-induced aggregation of the aptasensor which is associated as red-to-purple color change upon high-salt conditions. By employing anti-E. coli O157:H7 aptamer and anti-S. typhimurium aptamer, we developed a convenient and rapid approach that could selectively detect bacteria without specialized instrumentation and pretreatment steps such as cell lysis. The aptasensor could detect as low as 105colony-forming units (CFU)/ml target bacteria within 20 min or less and its specificity was 100%. This novel method has a great potential application in rapid detection of bacteria in the near future.
