Legionella pneumophila found in water is often causative of life threatening pneumonia. Cell culture is a common way of detecting Legionella pneumophila in water samples. Here, we describe a novel and time effective approach to specifically detect L. pneumophila.Surface Plasmon resonance imaging (SPRi) is used to detect 16S rRNA genes from L. pneumophilia in a digital microfluidic set-up. To overcome the lack of SPRi sensitivity, a post-amplification methodology is developed. The post amplification of the SPRi signal consists in using streptadvidin conjugated quantum dots and biotin conjugated RNAs detection probes (Figure 1-a). Preliminary results using synthetic RNA showed that a limit of detection of picomolar can be achieved with a hybridization time of 20 min (Figure1-b, c). Ongoing research aims at further increasing the specificity and sensitivity of the detection to fM range using two probes and optimization of the experimental parameters along with developing innovation surface activation strategies.

Post amplification strategy for time effective detection of 16S rRNA from Legionella pneumophilia in water sample using SPRi

245th National Meeting (2013)

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