Every year, millions of people suffer some form of illness associated with the consumption of contaminated food. Escherichia coli (E. coli), found in the intestines of humans and other animals, is commonly associated with various diseases, due to the existence of pathogenic strains. Strict monitoring of food products for human consumption is essential to ensure public health, but traditional cell culture-based methods are associated with long waiting times and high costs. New approaches must be developed to achieve cheap, fast, and on-site monitoring. Thus, in this work, we developed optical fiber sensors based on surface plasmon resonance. Gold and cysteamine-coated fibers were functionalized with anti-E. coli antibody and tested using E. coli suspensions with concentrations ranging from 1 cell/mL to 10 5 cells/mL. An average logarithmic sensitivity of 0.21 ± 0.01 nm/log(cells/mL) was obtained for three independent assays. An additional assay revealed that including molybdenum disulfide resulted in an increase of approximately 50% in sensitivity. Specificity and selectivity were also evaluated, and the sensors were used to analyze contaminated water samples, which verified their promising applicability in the aquaculture field.
Keyphrases
- escherichia coli
- induced apoptosis
- public health
- cell cycle arrest
- heavy metals
- single cell
- klebsiella pneumoniae
- biofilm formation
- high throughput
- drinking water
- photodynamic therapy
- cell death
- signaling pathway
- high speed
- climate change
- mass spectrometry
- bone marrow
- label free
- cell therapy
- sensitive detection
- molecularly imprinted
- silver nanoparticles