Abstract
The key to effective treatment of bacterial infections is a swift and reliable diagnosis. Current clinical standards of bacterial diagnosis are slow and laborious. There are several anatomical imaging modalities that can detect inflammation, but none can distinguish between bacterial and sterile inflammation. Novel tracers such as smart activatable fluorescent probes represent a promising development that allow fast and specific testing without the use of ionizing radiation. Previously, a smart activatable probe was developed that is a substrate for the micrococcal nuclease as produced by Staphylococcus aureus. In the present study, the function of this probe was validated. Practical applicability in terms of sensitivity was assessed by incubation of the probe with 26 clinical S. aureus isolates, and probe specificity was verified by incubation with 30 clinical isolates and laboratory strains of various bacterial pathogens. The results show that the nuclease-specific probe was activated by all tested S. aureus isolates and laboratory strains with a threshold of ~106–107 cells/mL. The probe was also activated by certain opportunistic staphylococci. We therefore propose that the studied nuclease probe represents a significant step forward to address the need for a rapid, practical, and precise method to detect infections caused by S. aureus.
Highlights
The most common sites of infection for S. aureus are catheters, prosthetic devices and SSI’s2
Other ways of detecting infections are the use of anatomical imaging modalities, such as ultrasound, computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), or functional imaging modalities, such as positron emission tomography (PET), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) or scintigraphy[9,10]
The objective of this research was to validate the function of the nuclease-activated P2&3 TT-probe, an optimized version of the probe described by Hernandez et al.[28], and to assess its ex vivo efficacy in optical imaging of S. aureus infections
Summary
The most common sites of infection for S. aureus are catheters, prosthetic devices and SSI’s2. Other ways of detecting infections are the use of anatomical imaging modalities, such as ultrasound, computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), or functional imaging modalities, such as positron emission tomography (PET), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) or scintigraphy[9,10]. These techniques allow detection in the whole body and are noninvasive. Promising new imaging techniques are fluorescent imaging and photoacoustic tomography (PAT)[16] These techniques do not require any form of ionizing radiation like CT, MRI, PET, SPECT and scintigraphy. Before it can be used in the clinic both the PAT capabilities and probe functionality have to be improved[17]
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