Culture-free diagnostics of Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection by silver nanorod array based SERS from clinical sputum samples.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa can cause major infection in immunocompromised patients, and successful antibiotic treatment of the infection relies on accurate and rapid identification of the infectious agents. Here, we reported a culture-free diagnostic method based on the surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) of pyocyanin (PCN), a major biomarker of P. aeruginosa. This platform can detect PCN as low as 5 ppb or 2.38 × 10(-8) mol L(-1) in both aqueous solutions and spiked clinical sputum samples. It has also been used to dynamically monitor the excretion of PCN by P. aeruginosa during its growth. The presence of PCN has been detected by SERS in 15 clinical sputum samples, which indicates P. aeruginosa infection, with 95.6% sensitivity and 93.3% specificity. The system can advantageously process multiple specimens rapidly, overcomes the need for bacterial culture and diagnostic microbiology assays, and have widespread implications in the early detection of P. aeruginosa infection.


BACKGROUND
A surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy method optimized for the detection of P. aureginosa infections is presented in this paper. The presence of pyocyanin, a marker of this bacterium has been detected in 15 clinical sputum samples utilizing this method. A sensitivity of 95.6% and 93.3% specificity was reported, which suggests that the method may enable culture-free high throughput rapid detection of this infection.
Department of Food Science and Technology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA; Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA. Electronic address: xwu@uga.edu.
Xiaomeng
X
Wu
Department of Food Science and Technology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA; Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
Jing
J
Chen
Science and Technology on Plasma Physics Laboratory, Research Center of Laser Fusion, China Academy of Engineering Physics, Mianyang, China; Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA; Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
Xibo
X
Li
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA; Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
Yiping
Y
Zhao
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Emory University School of Medicine, and Veterans Affair Medical Center, Atlanta, GA, USA. Electronic address: szughai@emory.edu.
Susu M
SM
Zughaier
D006801:Humans; D043942:Nanotubes / Q000737:chemistry*; D011552:Pseudomonas Infections / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011550:Pseudomonas aeruginosa / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D012834:Silver / Q000737:chemistry*; D013183:Sputum / Q000382:microbiology*
D012834:Silver
Biomarker; Pseudomonas aeruginosa; Pyocyanin; Silver nanorod arrays; Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy