What is it about?
The O-antigen determines the specificity of bacterial serotype, a sort of bacterial fingerprinting. In this work we report the extraction, purification and characterization of the O-antigen of two pathogenic bacteria, Escherichia coli O16 and Salmonella typhimurium. In addition, advantages of vibrational Raman scattering are unique thanks to the high sensitivity and specificity achieved via surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). SERS is used here to take advantage of characteristic vibrational frequency differences of O-antigens, thus allowing bacterial differentiation.
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Why is it important?
Could be a simple tool for pathogen detection
Perspectives
It could be used in the detection of bacteria and viruses, for instance, Covid-19
PhD in Chemistry Igor Osorio-Román
Universidad de Chile
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Characterization of bacteria using its O-antigen with surface-enhanced Raman scattering, The Analyst, January 2010, Royal Society of Chemistry,
DOI: 10.1039/c0an00061b.
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