A simple and rapid colorimetric bacteria detection method based on bacterial inhibition of glucose oxidase-catalyzed reaction

Rapid and sensitive detection of live bacteria is crucial in the realm of clinical diagnosis, food industry and environmental quality control. A portable, feasible and cost-effective platform which enables rapid and accurate live bacteria detection is still challenging. Herein, we present a Bacterial Inhibition of GOX-catalyzed Reaction (BIGR) method for rapid and broad-spectrum detection of live bacteria, which results in a visible color change without any complex instrumentations. We validated this strategy with five common clinical bacteria, namely Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis, Streptococcus mutans and Salmonella pullorum. This method precludes the interference of dead bacteria. Only several microliters of samples and reagents are required in this assay and the overall analysis time is less than 20 min. In a further demonstration, the presented method is successfully applied for detection of ascites samples from infected mice. Our results suggest that this method serves as a rapid and dose-dependent visual detection of pathogens in the clinical and daily life.