A Rapid Detection System Design for Escherichia Coli in Food Based on a Nanoprobe and Graphite Electrode Coupled With ATP Bioluminescence Technology

Abstract

Food safety concerns owing to bacterial contamination have drawn significant attention; thus, the development of techniques for rapid and accurate detection of pathogens is an active research area. The development of a biological detection methodology based on techniques such as nanoprobe, graphene transparent electrode (GTE), or adenosine triphosphate (ATP) luminescence is described in this paper. Two system parts were designed; one can pump reagents precisely controlled by a microprogrammed control unit (MCU), whereas the other can rapidly process signals from a photomultiplier tube (PMT) by the hard module. Thus, the system works automatically and detects bacteria in food rapidly. The system not only uses the probe to capture and enrich Escherichia coli via an antibody-antigen reaction but also enriches ATP using an electric field generated by the GTE to further improve the accuracy of the system. Compared with the other conventional approaches, this system can produce a linear correlation coefficient of up to 0.972 and meet the design demand. Moreover, detection can be completed within 20 min. The detectable bacterial concentration range is 102-106 CFU/mL. Additionally, a series of curves obtained by measurements of different polluted food products such as drinks, meat, and grains show that the system has a satisfactory performance. It meets the requirements of a rapid, on-site detection system.

Keywords

• Food technology
• fluorescence
• rapid detection
• optical signal detection