title: M13 virus based detection of bacterial infections in living hosts.
abstract: We report a first method for using M13 bacteriophage as a multifunctional scaffold for optically imaging bacterial infections in vivo. We demonstrate that M13 virus conjugated with hundreds of dye molecules (M13-Dye) can target and distinguish pathogenic infections of F-pili expressing and F-negative strains of E. coli. Further, in order to tune this M13-Dye complex suitable for targeting other strains of bacteria, we have used a 1-step reaction for creating an anti-bacterial antibody-M13-Dye probe. As an example, we show anti-S. aureus-M13-Dye able to target and image infections of S. aureus in living hosts, with a 3.7× increase in fluorescence over background.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA; The David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Neelkanth M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Bardhan
authors.forename: Debadyuti
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ghosh
authors.forename: Angela M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Belcher
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001419:Bacteria / Q000821:virology*; D001424:Bacterial Infections / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000821:virology*; D017104:Bacteriophage M13 / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes / Q000378:metabolism; D051379:Mice; D057054:Molecular Imaging / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D005456:Fluorescent Dyes
keywords: M13 bacteriophage; bacterial infections; fluorescent dye; optical imaging