Fabrication of gold/silver nanodimer SERS probes for the simultaneous detection of Salmonella typhimurium and Staphylococcus aureus

Salmonella typhimurium (S. typhimurium) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) are the two most important foodborne pathogens which can easily cause disease infections. Here, the aptamer-facilitated gold/silver nanodimer SERS probes were built for the simultaneous detection of the two bacteria with the help of magnetic separation enrichment. First, two nanodimer SERS signal probes and two magnetic capture probes each connected with the specific aptamer were fabricated. The distance between gold and silver nanoparticles in the dimer can amplify the Raman signal (Cy3 and Rox) at the junction but modified in the aptamer sequence. Then, after the addition of S. typhimurium and S. aureus, the sandwich- like composite structures "SERS signal probes-target-magnetic capture probes" formed because of the high affinity between aptamer sequences and their target bacteria. Under the optimal experimental conditions, the linear correlations between Raman intensity and the logarithm of the concentration of bacteria were y = 876.95x-67.84 (R-2 = 0.9865) for S. typhimurium and y = 1280.43x-1752.6 (R-2 = 0.9883) for S. aureus. The SERS detection showed the nanodimer probe had high selectivity. Besides, the recovery experiment in milk sample indicated good accuracy compared with the traditional plate counting method.