Journal of Biotechnology & Biomaterials
Open Access

Abstract

Food-borne disease outbreaks caused by the antibiotic resistant bacteria lead to severe threats to human health and thus are of major concern worldwide. Recently, the metal organic frameworks (MOFs) have been proposed as useful materials in the development of small molecule sensors. The MOFs possess certain excellent characteristics for example tunable porosity, high thermal/chemical stability and optoelectronic properties which make them exciting materials for the development of sensitive bio-sensors. It is imperative to explore techniques for the bio-conjugation of the MOFs with biomolecules to construct the desired specific sensors. The present research is aimed on bio-conjugating the MOFs with bacteriophage which are highly specific and stable natural alternative of other bio-recognition molecules including antibodies, nucleic acids and enzyme. Bacteriophages can be easily produced from natural wastewaters or soil in a cost effective manner and they can differentiate between dead and viable cells. The bacteriophages are particularly advantageous over other bio-recognition molecules (antibodies, nucleic acids, enzymes) which pose certain limitations e.g., high cost of production, instability under varying physiological conditions, ethical issues concerned with antibody production from animals and inability to differentiate viable cells from dead ones. In the present work, an amine functionalized luminescent MOF (IRMOF-3) was synthesized using solvothermal process at room temperature. Bacteriophages specific to Staphylococcus bacterial sp. were conjugated to the MOF surface in an oriented manner using covalent chemistry. The conjugated MOFs were characterized using several techniques, viz., UV-vis spectroscopy, FTIR, photoluminescence spectrophotometer, XRD and SEM. The above conjugated MOFs can be explored further for the detection of bacteria by measuring change in luminescence intensity of MOF for development of convenient, rapid, specific and effective sensors of bacterial contamination in food products.

Biography

Email:

dr.akashdeep@gmail.com