title: Rapid single cell detection of Staphylococcus aureus by aptamer-conjugated gold nanoparticles.
abstract: Staphylococcus aureus is one of the most important human pathogens, causing more than 500,000 infections in the United States each year. Traditional methods for bacterial culture and identification take several days, wasting precious time for patients who are suffering severe bacterial infections. Numerous nucleic acid-based detection methods have been introduced to address this deficiency; however, the costs and requirement for expensive equipment may limit the widespread use of such technologies. Thus, there is an unmet demand of new platform technology to improve the bacterial detection and identification in clinical practice. In this study, we developed a rapid, ultra-sensitive, low cost, and non-polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based method for bacterial identification. Using this method, which measures the resonance light-scattering signal of aptamer-conjugated gold nanoparticles, we successfully detected single S. aureus cell within 1.5 hours. This new platform technology may have potential to develop a rapid and sensitive bacterial testing at point-of-care.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedical Science, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, 115, ROC.
authors.forename: Yi-Chung
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: Chia-Ying
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Ruei-Lin
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Yi-Feng
authors.initials: YF
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Wei-Chen
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Kao
authors.forename: Pan-Chyr
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D052157:Aptamers, Nucleotide / Q000737:chemistry*; D005455:Fluorescent Antibody Technique; D006046:Gold / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D052156:SELEX Aptamer Technique; D013203:Staphylococcal Infections / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000235:genetics / Q000382:microbiology; D013211:Staphylococcus aureus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification
chemical_list: D052157:Aptamers, Nucleotide; D006046:Gold