Highly sensitive and rapid bacteria detection using molecular beacon-Au nanoparticles hybrid nanoprobes.

Since many diseases are caused by pathogenic bacterial infections, accurate and rapid detection of pathogenic bacteria is in urgent need to timely apply appropriate treatments and to reduce economic costs. To end this, we designed molecular beacon–Au nanoparticle hybrid nanoprobes to improve the bacterial detection efficiency and sensitivity. Here, we show that the designed molecular beacon modified Au nanoparticles could specifically recognize synthetic DNAs targets and can readily detect targets in clinical samples. Moreover, the hybrid nanoprobes can recognize Escherichia coli within an hour at a concentration of 102cfu/ml, which is 1000-folds sensitive than using molecular beacon directly. Our results show that the molecular beacon–Au nanoparticle hybrid nanoprobes have great potential in medical and biological applications.