Recipient Organization
MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY
901 S NATIONAL AVE
SPRINGFIELD,MO 65897-0027
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Increasing incidences of foodborne outbreaks due to salmonellosis necessitate the need for simple, field-based, easy to use tests that can be usedat the food supply chain to ensure advanced public health and food safety. Methods that are currently used for point-of care (POC) testing are either not sensitive and selective or have inherent limitations that restrict their implementation for on-site detection at food production. In this project, we propose to integrate light responsive-colorimetric labels with smartphone-based lateral flow assay (LFA, a paper-basedtechnology) for the accurate detection and quantification of Salmonella spp. in real food samplesincluding meat and poultry products. It is a simple-to-use paper-based test that displays intense blue color signal in the presence of trace amounts of bacterial contaminants enabling fast, inexpensive and ultrasensitive detection.Light-responsive colorimetric labels are created by introducing goldnanoparticles within the polymeric coating of magnetic core in a controlled fashion using a microwave reactor that endows higher sensitivity. The magnetic property allows rapid isolation of bacteria from diluted samples. In addition, the use of artificial intelligenceapproaches in the smartphone-based LFA technique will further enable to read the results accurately.Development of such smartphone-readable LFA technology will serve as front-line tools in agri-food industry for implementing better "farm to fork" interventions for food safety applications.
Animal Health Component
20%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
70%
Applied
20%
Developmental
10%
Goals / Objectives
The overall goal of this proposal is to develop catalytically enhancedLFA technology built on antibody-conjugated redox active gold-iron oxide nanohybrids (Au-Fe3O4) for the ultrasensitive detection of Salmonella spp. in food products.The following objectives will be pursued:Objective 1: Development and optimization of redox active gold-iron oxide nanohybrids (Au-Fe3O4). Using sustainable microwave-assisted,Au-Fe3O4 nanostructures will be synthesized. Careful optimization of physicochemical properties, detailed characterizations, structure-activity assessments, signal amplification mechanism determination and stability assessments to maximize catalytic activity. Density functional theory (DFT) experimentsfor predicting peroxidase-mimetic mechanisms at atomistic levels.Objective 2: Determine the functionality/catalytic activity of antibody-conjugated Au-Fe3O4 nanostructures and establishing LFA for Salmonella detection. Au-Fe3O4 nanohybrids will be conjugated with antibodies for detection of Salmonella in assay buffer. Careful evaluation of antibodies through LFA for selecting the matched pair and obtaining higher sensitivity and specificity. Optimization of key experimental parameters through performance characteristics and critical evaluation of sensitivity and reproducibility. LoD determination, LFA quantification using ML algorithm assisted smartphone devices.Objective 3: Validating the utility of Au-Fe3O4-LFA in complex food matrices. Analytical performance assessment in Salmonella spiked meat samples. Metagenomic sequencing of the contaminated samples for further cross-validation, serotyping and precise LFA quantification through ML-assisted algorithms using smartphones.
Project Methods
Immuno-magnetic separation, microwave-assisted iron-gold nanohybrid synthesis, nanozyme activity assays, lateral flow assays, UV/Vis spectroscopy, colorimetric assay, density functional theory (DFT) experiments, U/Net-based ML models for LFA quantification,dynamic light scattering, XRD and XPS, bacterial culture.