Direct Detection of Bacteria Using Positively Charged Ag/Au Bimetallic Nanoparticles: A Label-free Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Study Coupled with Multivariate Analysis

Rapid detection and discrimination of pathogenic bacteria for food safety, environmental pollution, medical diagnoses, and chemical and biological threats remains a considerable challenge. In the present work, we demonstrate positively charged Ag/Au bimetallic nanoparticles (Ag/Au bmNPs) as a potential surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate for label-free detection and discrimination of three bacteria, viz., Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium, and Bacillus subtilis with excellent reproducibility. The approach relies on a priori synthesis of Ag/Au bmNPs and subsequent SERS studies on bacteria. The positive surface charge on Ag/Au bmNPs offers significant advantages of short acquisition time at very low power, high sensitivity, and a simple operating procedure without the need of very specific procedures or protocols used to capture the bacteria. The reproducible and specific intrinsic fingerprint of the cell wall and intracellular components of three bacteria obtained by label-free SERS enables precise discrimination and classification of three bacteria using multivariate analyses such as principal component analysis and canonical discriminant analysis.