Novel Analytical Techniques for the Characterization of Bacterial and Viral Infections
Mark Broenstrup,
Professor & Head,
Helmholtz Centre For Infection Research
Infections caused by pathogenic bacteria and viruses represent a major global health threat. Although the reduction of morbidity and mortality by effective antibiotics and antiviral drugs represents a major achievement of modern medicine, this threat is partially rising due to the inevitable generation of bacterial and viral resistance, the emergence of novel pathogens, or their facilitated spread through international mobility. In order to counteract this alarming trend, the improvement of diagnostic methods plays a pivotal role. There is a strong need for improved methods to accurately diagnose the infectious pathogens in the presence of beneficial colonizing microbes and to characterize its phenotype.
Our work on two diagnostic methods will be highlighted in the talk: First, we applied electrochemical impedance spectroscopy for characterizing P. aeruginosa biofilms. The method allowed monitoring the growth dynamics of biofilm-forming P. aeruginosa in a continuous and label-free manner over a period of 72 hours in a 96 well plate format. Mechanistic experiments implied that the pellicle formation at the liquid-air interface strongly modulated impedance, a contributor that has hardly been considered yet. The impairment of biofilm formation upon treatment of cultures antibiotics and tool compounds was tracked with standard deviations that were superior to those obtained with crystal violet staining. We suggest that these findings qualify impedance spectroscopy as a cost-effective technique to characterize biofilm formation and its modulation by small molecule drugs.
In the second part, the use of peptide arrays printed on glass slides to characterize viral infections will be presented (‘chip serology’). Herpes B virus (BV), closely related to Herpes Simplex viruses (HSV-1 and -2), is the endemic simplexvirus of macaque monkeys. A zoonotic infection of humans with BV results in severe neurological dysfunctions and death, if left untreated. Therefore, a reliable
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