Colorimetric Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing Using Alginate-Polydiacetylene Hydrogels

초록

Sepsis, a severe condition characterized by systemic inflammatory responses due to bacterial infections, poses a significant public health threat, particularly with the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria like MRSA. Traditional methods for testing antimicrobial susceptibility (AST) typically take around three days to complete blood culture, pure culture, and AST procedures.To address the time-consuming process, a novel approach utilizing a chromatic biosensor called PAL(composed of poly(diacetylene), alginate, and LB broth)is introduced. This method allows for AST to be completed in as little as 16 hours, significantly reducing the time required. The PAL biosensor achieves this by simultaneously conducting consecutive cultures and AST, encapsulating bacterial nutrients and detection molecules into a single component. The use of bead-like hydrogel sensors in freeze-dried form enhances their portability and stability, making them suitable for point-of-care testing. The PAL biosensor demonstrates comparable minimum inhibitory concentrations to those determined by the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute, and its effectiveness is validated in MRSA-infected mice.