Work

M13 Virus based detection of bacterial infections in living hosts

Year: 2013

Type: article

Abstract: We report a first method for using M13 bacteriophage as a multifunctional scaffold for optically imaging bacterial infections in vivo. We demonstrate that M13 virus conjugated with hundreds of dye molecules (M13-Dye) can target and distinguish pathogenic infections of F-pili expressing and F-negative strains of E. coli. Further, in order to tune this M13-Dye complex suitable for targeting other strains of bacteria, we have used a 1-step reaction for creating an anti-bacterial antibody-M13-Dye probe. As an example, we show anti-S. aureus-M13-Dye able to target and image infections of S. aureus in living hosts, with a 3.7× increase in fluorescence over background.

Source: Journal of Biophotonics

DOI: 10.1002/jbio.201300010

Authors: Neelkanth M. Bardhan, Debadyuti Ghosh, Angela M. Belcher

Institutions: Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research At MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Language: English

Topic: Bacteriophages and microbial interactions

Subfield: Ecology

Field: Environmental Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funder: National Cancer Institute