Thermal Pyocyanin Sensor Based on Molecularly Imprinted Polymers for the Indirect Detection of Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Abstract

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a ubiquitous multi-drug-resistant bacterium, capable of causing serious illnesses and infections. This research focuses on the development of a thermal sensor for the indirect detection of P. aeruginosa infection using molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs). This was achieved by developing MIPs for the detection of pyocyanin, the main toxin secreted by P. aeruginosa. To this end, phenazine was used as a dummy template, evaluating several polymeric compositions to achieve a selective MIP for pyocyanin recognition. The sensitivity of the synthesized MIPs was investigated by UV–vis analysis, with the best composition having a maximum rebinding capacity of 30 μmol g–1 and an imprinting factor (IF) of 1.59. Subsequently, the MIP particles were immobilized onto planar aluminum chips using an adhesive layer, to perform thermal resistance measurements at clinically relevant concentrations of pyocyanin (1.4–9.8 μM), achieving a limit of detection (LoD) of 0.347 ± 0.027 μM. The selectivity of the sensor was also scrutinized by subjecting the receptor to potential interferents. Furthermore, the rebinding was demonstrated in King’s A medium, highlighting the potential of the sensor for the indirect detection of P. aeruginosa in complex fluids. The research culminates in the demonstration of the MIP-based sensor’s applicability for clinical diagnosis. To achieve this goal, an experiment was performed in which the sensor was exposed to pyocyanin-spiked saliva samples, achieving a limit of detection of 0.569 ± 0.063 μM and demonstrating that this technology is suitable to detect the presence of the toxin even at the very first stage of its production.

Advances in electrochemical-optical dual-mode biosensors for detection of environmental pathogens

“…Das and coworkers established a dual mode aptasensor for the quantification of Pseudomonas aeruginosa , 59 a bacterium triggering prevalent pollution of foodstuff and water throughout the world. 60 In this study, AuNPs and the F23 aptamer are applied as peroxidase-like nanozymes, and the bioprobe, respectively. Bare AuNPs can catalyze TMB oxidation in the presence of H 2 O 2 , but the inherent performance is quenched upon ssDNA aptamer adsorption.…”

Emerging Biomimetic Sensor Technologies for the Detection of Pathogenic Bacteria: A Commercial Viability Study

“…As MIPs intrinsically focus on molecular targets, the most effective technologies developed for applications in this field confirm the presence of bacteria inside a sample by the indirect detection of a specific toxin, metabolite, or autoinducer molecule associated with a specific pathogen of interest. 95 …”

Dipstick Sensor Based on Molecularly Imprinted Polymer‐Coated Screen‐Printed Electrodes for the Single‐Shot Detection of Glucose in Urine Samples—From Fundamental Study toward Point‐of‐Care Application

“…In this case, binding of glucose to the MIP layer, increases the thermal resistance of the interface, leading to a drop in temperature in the liquid flow cell above the MIP-functionalized sensor chip. [21,35,36] Adv. Mater.…”

“…In the past years, many MIP-based sensors have been developed for glucose detection, [30,31] with most of them being MIP films polymerized onto a substrate [30,[32][33][34] or platforms based on MIP micro particles embedded onto an adhesive layer. [35,36] Even though such sensors showed promising results in terms of sensitivity and selectivity, the materials and procedures used to develop the platforms make the production process highly difficult to reproduce on a large scale and difficult to implement in a clinical setting.…”