Copolymer Brush-Based Ultralow-Fouling Biorecognition Surface Platform for Food Safety.

Functional polymer coatings that combine the ability to resist nonspecific fouling from complex media with high biorecognition element (BRE) immobilization capacity represent an emerging class of new functional materials for a number of bioanalytical and biosensor technologies for medical diagnostics, security, and food safety. Here, we report on a random copolymer brush surface - poly(CBMAA-ran-HPMAA) - providing high BRE immobilization capacity while simultaneously exhibiting ultralow-fouling behavior in complex food media. We demonstrate that both the functionalization and fouling resistance capabilities of such copolymer brushes can be tuned by changing the surface contents of the two monomer units: nonionic N-(2-hydroxypropyl) methacrylamide (HPMAA) and carboxy-functional zwitterionic carboxybetaine methacrylamide (CBMAA). It is demonstrated that the resistance to fouling decreases with the surface content of CBMAA; poly(CBMAA-ran-HPMAA) brushes with CBMAA molar content up to 15 mol % maintain excellent resistance to fouling from a variety of homogenized foods (hamburger, cucumber, milk, and lettuce) even after covalent attachment of BREs to carboxy groups of CBMAA. The poly(CBMAA 15 mol %-ran-HPMAA) brushes functionalized with antibodies are demonstrated to exhibit fouling resistance from food samples by up to 3 orders of magnitude better when compared with the widely used low-fouling carboxy-functional oligo(ethylene glycol) (OEG)-based alkanethiolate self-assembled monolayers (AT SAMs) and, furthermore, by up to 2 orders of magnitude better when compared with the most successful ultralow-fouling biorecognition coatings - poly(carboxybetaine acrylamide), poly(CBAA). When model SPR detections of food-borne bacterial pathogens in homogenized foods are used, it is also demonstrated that the antibody-functionalized poly(CBMAA 15 mol %-ran-HPMAA) brush exhibits superior biorecognition properties over the poly(CBAA).

Low-fouling surface plasmon resonance biosensor for multi-step detection of foodborne bacterial pathogens in complex food samples.

Recent outbreaks of foodborne illnesses have shown that foodborne bacterial pathogens present a significant threat to public health, resulting in an increased need for technologies capable of fast and reliable screening of food commodities. The optimal method of pathogen detection in foods should: (i) be rapid, specific, and sensitive; (ii) require minimum sample preparation; and (iii) be robust and cost-effective, thus enabling use in the field. Here we report the use of a SPR biosensor based on ultra-low fouling and functionalizable poly(carboxybetaine acrylamide) (pCBAA) brushes for the rapid and sensitive detection of bacterial pathogens in crude food samples utilizing a three-step detection assay. We studied both the surface resistance to fouling and the functional capabilities of these brushes with respect to each step of the assay, namely: (I) incubation of the sensor with crude food samples, resulting in the capture of bacteria by antibodies immobilized to the pCBAA coating, (II) binding of secondary biotinylated antibody (Ab2) to previously captured bacteria, and (III) binding of streptavidin-coated gold nanoparticles to the biotinylated Ab2 in order to enhance the sensor response. We also investigated the effects of the brush thickness on the biorecognition capabilities of the gold-grafted functionalized pCBAA coatings. We demonstrate that pCBAA-compared to standard low-fouling OEG-based alkanethiolate self-assemabled monolayers-exhibits superior surface resistance regarding both fouling from complex food samples as well as the non-specific binding of S-AuNPs. We further demonstrate that a SPR biosensor based on a pCBAA brush with a thickness as low as 20 nm was capable of detecting E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella sp. in complex hamburger and cucumber samples with extraordinary sensitivity and specificity. The limits of detection for the two bacteria in cucumber and hamburger extracts were determined to be 57 CFU/mL and 17 CFU/mL for E. coli and 7.4 × 10(3) CFU/mL and 11.7 × 10(3)CFU/mL for Salmonella sp., respectively. In addition, we demonstrate the simultaneous detection of E. coli and Salmonella sp. in hamburger sample using a multichannel SPR biosensor having appropriate functional coatings.