Fluorescent gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) as powerful tools for microbial diagnostics

Abstract

Fluorescent gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) have attracted significant research interest in recent years due to their unique physicochemical properties. The full diversity of these properties remains incompletely explored. AuNCs exhibit high photostability, aggregation-induced emission, a large Stokes shift, and tunable emission spectra. They are also relatively simple to synthesize in aqueous media. This report presents our progress in applying gold nanoclusters to microbial diagnostics. We developed several approaches. Firstly, we created gold nanocluster-based fluorescent technology for rapid qualitative and quantitative detection of biofilms on medical device surfaces, including glass coverslips, test tubes, and silicone catheters. The technology also visualizes biofilms in co-cultures of fibroblasts and bacteria, which represent in vitro wound models. It detects biofilms not only in washes and biopsy samples but also directly on medical devices in situ. This fluorescent biofilm detection technology proved 10 times more sensitive than the standard dye used in clinical microbiology. A second approach visualizes bacterial cells using fluorescent AuNCs. It uses in situ biosynthesis of AuNCs directly on bacterial cell walls. This method enables labeling of individual planktonic bacterial cells and the creation of whole-cell fluorescent probes from them. In the future, such probes could be applied to visualize interactions between bacterial cells and biological tissue.

Speaker

Daniil S. Chumakov
Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology of Plants and Microorganisms, Saratov Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IBPPM RAS)
Russia

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