A Regenerable Biosensing Platform for Bacterial Toxins

Antunez, E. Eduardo; Mahon, Clare S.; Tong, Ziqiu; Voelcker, Nicolas H.; Müllner, Markus

Abstract

Waterborne diarrheal diseases such as travelers’ diarrhea and cholera remain a threat to public health in many countries. Rapid diagnosis of an infectious disease is critical in preventing the escalation of a disease outbreak into an epidemic. Many of the diagnostic tools for infectious diseases employed today are time-consuming and require specialized laboratory settings and trained personnel. There is hence a pressing need for fit-for-purpose point-of-care diagnostic tools with emphasis in sensitivity, specificity, portability, and low cost. We report work toward thermally reversible biosensors for detection of the carbohydrate-binding domain of the Escherichia coli heat-labile enterotoxin (LTB), a toxin produced by enterotoxigenic E. coli strains, which causes travelers’ diarrhea. The biosensing platform is a hybrid of two materials, combining the optical properties of porous silicon (pSi) interferometric transducers and a thermoresponsive multivalent glycopolymer, to enable recognition of LTB. Analytical performance of our biosensors allows us to detect, using a label-free format, sub-micromolar concentrations of LTB in solution as low as 0.135 μM. Furthermore, our platform shows a temperature-mediated “catch-and-release” behavior, an exciting feature with potential for selective protein capture, multiple readouts, and regeneration of the sensor over consecutive cycles of use.

Citation

Antunez, E. E., Mahon, C. S., Tong, Z., Voelcker, N. H., & Müllner, M. (2021). A Regenerable Biosensing Platform for Bacterial Toxins. Biomacromolecules, 22(2), 441-453. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.biomac.0c01318

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Dec 15, 2020
• Publication Date: Feb 8, 2021
• Deposit Date: Mar 31, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 15, 2021
• Journal: Biomacromolecules
• Print ISSN: 1525-7797
• Electronic ISSN: 1526-4602
• Publisher: American Chemical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 22
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 441-453
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.biomac.0c01318
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1250318