Fluorescent Probe for the pH-Independent Rapid and Sensitive Direct Detection of Urease-Producing Bacteria

Urease-producing bacteria are highly relevant in medicine due to their role in various pathogenic processes and their impact on human health, causing serious medical conditions such as peptic ulcer disease, gastric cancer, and respiratory and urinary tract infections. In this work, we designed fluorescent polymeric particles (PNP_FITC) to enable the detection of urease-producing bacteria by targeting the enzymatic activity of urease. In particular, the PNP_FITC matrix is degraded by urease, leading to a measurable increase in the intensity of the fluorescent signal. This approach is designed to directly sense urease activity and is therefore not affected by environmental parameters, unlike standard methods based on the quantification of enzymatic metabolites (i.e., NH