Detection of of Salmonella typhimurium using phage based magnetostrictive sensor

摘要

This article presents a contactless, remote sensing Salmonella typhimurium sensor based on the principle of magnetostriction. Magnetostrictive materials have been used widely for various types of sensor systems. In this work, the use of a magnetostrictive material for the detection of Salmonella typhimurium has been established. The mass of the bacteria attached to the sensor causes changes in the resonance frequency of the sensor. Filamentous bacteriophage was used as a probe order to ensure specific and selective binding of the bacteria onto the sensor surface. Thus changes in response of the sensor due to the mass added onto the sensor caused by specific attachment of bacteria can be monitored in absence of any contact to the sensor. The response of the sensor due to increasing concentrations (from 5x10~1 to 5x10~8 cfu/ml) of the bacteria was studied. A reduction in the physical dimensions enhances the sensitivity of these sensors and hence different dimensions of the sensor ribbons were studied. For a 2mm x 0.1mm x 0.02mm the detection limit was observed to be of the order of 10~4 cfu/mL and for a sensor of 1mm x 0.2mm x 0.02mm a reduced detection limit of 10~3 cfu/mL was achieved.