Early and accurate monitoring of pathogens such as Escherichia coli is critical for food and water safety, clinical diagnosis, and biosecurity. However there are a number of limitations to current detection methods such as cell culturing, and immunoassays. These drawbacks include non-specificity, insensitivity, as well as the requirement of long analysis time, intensive labor, and extensive sample purification. To address some of these limitations, Christopher Pöhlmann and his colleagues from the University of Bayreuth in Germany have developed a lateral flow device based on a sandwich assay design using gold nanoparticle-oligonucleotides to detect ribosomal RNA of E. coli. The new device is able to provide specific detection of E. coli within 25 minutes and requires no signal amplification step.
A Lateral Flow Assay for Detection of E. coli Ribosomal RNA
Find out more about this discovery by reading the full paper below, which is free to download until March 7th:
A lateral flow assay for identification of Escherichia coli by ribosomal RNA hybridization
Christopher Pöhlmann, Irina Dieser and Mathias Sprinzl
Analyst, 2014, 139, 1063-1071
DOI: 10.1039/C3AN02059B
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