Issue 2, 2013

Rapid antibiotic susceptibility testing by tracking single cell growth in a microfluidic agarose channel system

Abstract

Sepsis is one of the major causes of death in the US, necessitating rapid treatment with proper antibiotics. Conventional systems for antibiotic susceptibility testing (AST) take far too long (16–24 h) for the timely treatment of sepsis. This is because they rely on measuring optical density, which relates to bacterial growth, to determine the minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of relevant antibiotics. Thus, there is a desperate need for more improved and rapid AST (RAST) systems. The RAST system can also reduce the growing number of clinical problems that are associated with antibiotic resistance caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, vancomycin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and vancomycin-resistant enterococci. In this study, we demonstrate a microfluidic agarose channel (MAC) system that reduces the AST assay time for determining MICs by single bacterial time lapse imaging. The MAC system immobilizes bacteria by using agarose in a microfluidic culture chamber so that single cell growth can be tracked by microscopy. Time lapse images of single bacterial cells under different antibiotic culture conditions were analyzed by image processing to determine MICs. Three standard bacteria from the Clinical and Laboratory Standard Institute (CLSI) were tested with several kinds of antibiotics. MIC values that were well matched with those of the CLSI were obtained within only 3–4 h. We expect that the MAC system can offer rapid diagnosis of sepsis and thus, more efficient and proper medication in the clinical setting.

Graphical abstract: Rapid antibiotic susceptibility testing by tracking single cell growth in a microfluidic agarose channel system

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
18 сеп 2012
Accepted
25 окт 2012
First published
26 окт 2012

Lab Chip, 2013,13, 280-287

Rapid antibiotic susceptibility testing by tracking single cell growth in a microfluidic agarose channel system

J. Choi, Y. Jung, J. Kim, S. Kim, Y. Jung, H. Na and S. Kwon, Lab Chip, 2013, 13, 280 DOI: 10.1039/C2LC41055A

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements