Journal
ANALYTICAL AND BIOANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
Volume 404, Issue 3, Pages 843-851Publisher
SPRINGER HEIDELBERG
DOI: 10.1007/s00216-012-6172-7
Keywords
Francisella tularensis; Quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring; Bacteria detection; Signal enhancement
Funding
- BMBF (Federal Ministry for Education and Research, Germany) in the context of the national safety research program via the BiGRUDI project [13N9593]
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Francisella tularensis are very small, gram-negative bacteria which are capable of infecting a number of mammals. As a highly pathogenic species, it is a potential bioterrorism agent. In this work we demonstrate a fast immunological detection system for whole F. tularensis bacteria. The technique is based on a quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCMD), which uses sensor chips modified by a specific antibody. This antibody is useful as a capture molecule to capture the lipopolysaccharide structure on the surface of the bacterial cell wall. The QCMD technique is combined with a microfluidic system and allows the label-free online detection of the binding of whole bacteria to the sensor surface in a wide dynamic concentration range. A detection limit of about 4 x 10(3) colony-forming units per milliliter can be obtained. Furthermore, a rather short analysis time and a clear discrimination against other bacteria can be achieved. Additionally, we demonstrate two possibilities for specific and significant signal enhancement by using antibody-functionalized gold nanoparticles or an enzymatic precipitation reaction. These additional steps can be seen as further proof of the specificity and validity.
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