Aptamer-Capped nanoporous anodic alumina for Staphylococcus aureus detection
[EN] The development of new detection systems for an accurate and rapid identification of pathogens has become an essential challenge in the biomedical field. Herein a highly selective platform based on aptamer-gated nano materials for specific Staphylococcus aureus detection is presented. In the proposed design, a nanoporous anodic alumina (NAA) scaffold is loaded with the fluorescent indicator rhodamine B, while pores entrances are capped by a DNA aptamer which selectively recognizes S. aureus cells in less than 1 h. When S. aureus cells are present, the solid is selectively uncapped, and the dye is released to the medium. This nanodevice allows the detection of bacterial concentrations between 2 and 5 CFU mL-1 (in buffer and blood, respectively) and it has demonstrated excellent behavior in terms of specificity and robustness. A set of 25 different clinical samples are analyzed using this simple procedure obtaining excellent results, which agree with conventional hospital reference techniques for the identification of S. aureus. This new method is sensitive, rapid and low cost, and avoids steps such as polymerase chain amplification reaction, which makes it suitable for use in point-of-care detection systems. ; This study was supported by the Spanish Government (projects RTI2018-100910-B-C41 and SAF2017-82251-R (MCUI/AEI/FEDER, UE)), the Generalitat Valenciana (project PROMETEO/2018/024), the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia-Instituto de Investigacion Sanitaria La Fe (B02-MIRSA project) and CIBER-BBN (NANOPATH and valorization project CANDI-EYE). It has been also co-financed by the EU through the Valencian Community ERDF PO 2014-2020. S.S. thanks the Instituto de Salud Carlos III and the European Social Fund for the financial support "Sara Borrell" (CD16/000237). L.P. thanks to Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad for his FPI grant. The authors are grateful for the professional English language editing to Mr. Arash Javadinejad, English Instructor and pubication Editor at the Instituto de ...