DNA-encoded bimetallic Au-Pt dumbbell nanozyme for high-performance detection and eradication of Escherichia coli O157:H7

Infectious Escherichia coli O157:H7 threatens the health of millions people each year. Thus, it is important to establish a simple and sensitive method for bacterial detection and eradication. Herein, a DNA-programming strategy is explored to synthesize anisotropic dumbbell-like Au-Pt nanoparticles with excellent catalytic and anti-bacterial activities, which were applied in the simultaneous detection and eradication of pathogenic bacteria. The DNA sequence-dependent growth of bimetallic nanoparticles is firstly studied and polyT20 has the tendency to form dumbbell-like Au-Pt bimetallic structures based on gold nanorods seeds. PolyA20 and polyC20 can also form similar structures but only at much lower DNA concentrations, which can be explained by their much higher affinity to the metal surfaces than T20. The as-prepared nanoparticles exhibit high nanozyme catalytic activity resulting from the synergistic effect of Au and Pt. Under light irradiation, the Au-Pt nanoparticles show high photothermal conversion efficiency and enhanced catalytic activity, which can be applied for the eradication and detection of E. coli O157:H7 with a robust efficacy (95%) in 5 min and provides excellent linear detection (10-107 CFU/mL), with a detection limit of 2 CFU/mL. This study offered new insights into DNAdirected synthesis of nanomaterials with excellent biosensing and antibiotic applications.

Automated summary

This study successfully synthesized anisotropic dumbbell-like Au-Pt nanoparticles with excellent catalytic and anti-bacterial activities through a DNA-programming strategy, which were applied in the detection and eradication of pathogenic bacteria. The research also discovered the DNA sequence-dependent growth of bimetallic nanoparticles and highlighted the high nanozyme catalytic activity and photothermal conversion efficiency of the Au-Pt nanoparticles.