Whole Cell Recognition of Staphylococcus aureus Using Biomimetic SPR Sensors

Over the past few decades, a significant increase in multi-drug-resistant pathogenic microorganisms has been of great concern and directed the research subject to the challenges that the distribution of resistance genes represent. Globally, high levels of multi-drug resistance represent a significant health threat and there is a growing requirement of rapid, accurate, real-time detection which plays a key role in tracking of measures for the infections caused by these bacterial strains. It is also important to reduce transfer of resistance genes to new organisms. The, World Health Organization has informed that millions of deaths have been reported each year recently. To detect the resistant organisms traditional detection approaches face limitations, therefore, newly developed technologies are needed that are suitable to be used in large-scale applications. In the present study, the aim was to design a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor with micro-contact imprinted sensor chips for the detection of Staphylococcus aureus. Whole cell imprinting was performed by N-methacryloyl-L-histidine methyl ester (MAH) under UV polymerization. Sensing experiments were done within a concentration range of 1.0 × 10²–2.0 × 10⁵ CFU/mL. The recognition of S. aureus was accomplished by the involvement of microcontact imprinting and optical sensor technology with a detection limit of 1.5 × 10³ CFU/mL. Selectivity of the generated sensor was evaluated through injections of competing bacterial strains. The responses for the different strains were compared to that of S. aureus. Besides, real experiments were performed with milk samples spiked with S. aureus and it was demonstrated that the prepared sensor platform was applicable for real samples.