Use of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy to identify mycobacteria
Class
Article
Department
Biological and Irrigation Engineering
Faculty Mentor
Elizabeth Vargis
Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
Abstract
Prompt identification of bacteria is needed in a variety of situations such as the detection of biological threats and bioterrorism, proper diagnosis and treatment in life threatening cases of bacterial infection, and monitoring for bacterial contaminants in water supplies. Typical bacterial identification methods take one to two days to complete. In contrast, laser spectroscopy methods, like Raman spectroscopy, have been used as a means to decrease analysis time to a matter of minutes. Raman spectroscopy is dependent on a light-scattering event that occurs once for every million photons. The method has been improved upon by using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), which enhances the weak scattering event by several orders of magnitude. The improvement is due to the presence of nanoparticles, which assist in exciting the sample. This study assessed the bacterial signal enhancement due to gold nanorods. In addition, resulting spectra was used to identify differences among three strains of mycobacteria (JLS, MCS, and KMS). The results indicate that the nanorods effectively improve signal-to-noise ratio and provide better distinction between mycobacteria strains.
Start Date
4-9-2015 1:00 PM
Use of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy to identify mycobacteria
Prompt identification of bacteria is needed in a variety of situations such as the detection of biological threats and bioterrorism, proper diagnosis and treatment in life threatening cases of bacterial infection, and monitoring for bacterial contaminants in water supplies. Typical bacterial identification methods take one to two days to complete. In contrast, laser spectroscopy methods, like Raman spectroscopy, have been used as a means to decrease analysis time to a matter of minutes. Raman spectroscopy is dependent on a light-scattering event that occurs once for every million photons. The method has been improved upon by using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), which enhances the weak scattering event by several orders of magnitude. The improvement is due to the presence of nanoparticles, which assist in exciting the sample. This study assessed the bacterial signal enhancement due to gold nanorods. In addition, resulting spectra was used to identify differences among three strains of mycobacteria (JLS, MCS, and KMS). The results indicate that the nanorods effectively improve signal-to-noise ratio and provide better distinction between mycobacteria strains.