中央研究院 原子與分子科學研究所

Rapid bacterial antibiotic susceptibility test (AST) and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) measurement are important to help reduce the widespread misuse of antibiotics and alleviate the growing drug-resistance problem. We discovered that, when a susceptible strain of Staphylococcus aureus or Escherichia coli is exposed to an antibiotic, the intensity of specific biomarkers in its surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectra drops evidently in two hours. The discovery has been exploited for rapid AST and MIC determination of methicillin-susceptible S. aureus and wild-type E. coli as well as clinical isolates. The results obtained by this SERS-AST method were consistent with that by the standard incubation-based method, indicating its high potential to supplement or replace existing time-consuming methods and help mitigate the challenge of drug resistance in clinical microbiology.

Detecting bacteria in clinical samples without using time-consuming culture processes would allow rapid diagnoses. Such a culture-free detection method requires the capture and analysis of bacteria from a body fluid, which are usually of complicated composition. Here we show that coating Ag-nanoparticle arrays with vancomycin (Van) can provide label-free analysis of bacteria via surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), leading to a ~1,000-fold increase in bacteria capture, without introducing significant spectral interference. Bacteria from human blood can be concentrated onto a microscopic Van-coated area while blood cells are excluded. Furthermore, a Van-coated substrate provides distinctly different SERSspectra of Van-susceptible and Van-resistant Enterococcus, indicating its potential use for drug-resistance tests. Our results represent a critical step towards the creation of SERS-based multifunctional biochips for rapid culture- and label-free detection and drug-resistant testing of microorganisms in clinical samples.

Focused ion beam (FIB) lithography can be used to selectively close nanochannels in an ordered array on an anodic-alumina film, producing templates with the nanochannels arranged in custom-designed geometries. Nanochannel closing can be monitored by in-situ FIB imaging. Nanodevices such as photonic-crystal waveguides could be fabricated using this technique.