Surface‐Enhanced Raman Scattering for Rapid Detection and Characterization of Antibiotic‐Resistant Bacteria

Abstract

As the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria continues to rise, biosensing technologies are needed to enable rapid diagnosis of bacterial infections. Furthermore, understanding the unique biochemistry of resistance mechanisms can facilitate the development of next generation therapeutics. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) offers a potential solution to real-time diagnostic technologies, as well as a route to fundamental, mechanistic studies. In the current review, SERS-based approaches to the detection and characterization of antibiotic-resistant bacteria are covered. The commonly used nanomaterials (nanoparticles and nanostructured surfaces) and surface modifications (antibodies, aptamers, reporters, etc.) for SERS bacterial detection and differentiation are discussed first, and followed by a review of SERS-based detection of antibiotic-resistant bacteria from environmental/food processing and clinical sources. Antibiotic susceptibility testing and minimum inhibitory concentration testing with SERS are then summarized. Finally, recent developments of SERS-based chemical imaging/mapping of bacteria are reviewed.

Enhancing Disease Diagnosis: Biomedical Applications of Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering

“…The objective of using SERS is to obtain unique "whole-organism" metabolic fingerprints to discern intrinsic biochemical content and dynamics of microbial cells. The differential characteristic SERS frequencies of chemical bonds are used to identify, discriminate and define phenotypes of infectious microbes at species and strain levels in just a few minutes, as demonstrated previously [18,113]. Of the successful applications of SERS for microbial diagnostics, the report by Jarvis and Goodacre was the first to study urinary tract infection (UTI) [72].…”

“…[120,121], opportunistic Staphylococcus epidermidis [17], Aspergillus fumigatus and Rhizomucor pusillus [122], and to probe microbial cell functionality [119]. Intriguingly, an in situ SERS method proved to be very sensitive and effective for susceptibility assessment of clinical pathogens against common first line antibiotics treatment [17], to complement previous efforts [18,123]. AMR is considered as one of the biggest public health threats where microbes elude antibiotics designed to kill them.…”

“…Since its discovery, SERS has been successfully applied to a wide range of fields including environmental [15,16], antibiotic resistance [17,18], food [19,20] and pharmaceuticals [21,22]. However, it is in the last decade that SERS has become an exciting hypothesis-driven tool for in vitro and in vivo characterisation of diseases in biofluids, cells or biopsy [23,24].…”

A WS2-gold nanoparticle heterostructure-based novel SERS platform for the rapid identification of antibiotic-resistant pathogens

“…26 As a result, there is a huge urgency in nding rapid and costeffective assays which will have the capability for rapid and accurate determination of the appropriate antibiotic for an infection in a timely manner. [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] Driven by this need, the current manuscript demonstrates that 0D-2D heterostructurebased SERS is capable of rapid identication of drug resistant bacteria by monitoring structural changes in the pathogen's cell wall during antibiotic treatment. Reported data show that the SERS can be used for the identication of multidrug resistant Salmonella DT104 and a normal strain Salmonella Typhi antimicrobial susceptibility test using Augmentin antibiotics, even at the concentration of 100 CFU mL À1 experimental data reported here indicates that heterostructure-based SERS has the capability of antimicrobial susceptibility testing in less than 2 hours, whereas the "gold standard" broth microdilution (BMD) test takes 16 to 20 h in clinics until the number of bacteria reaches above 10 5 CFU mL À1 .…”

Label‐free diagnosis for colorectal cancer through coffee ring‐assisted surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy on blood serum

“…The potential of surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) for analyzing biological samples and pathogens for diagnostic purposes is well recognized . The signal amplification through electromagnetic enhancement, the ability to provide molecule‐specific vibrational data and the inherent swiftness of the optical method make SERS a powerful candidate for the development of sensitive diagnostic strategies .…”