Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.
Department of Biomedical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.
J Hazard Mater. 2022 Jun 5;431:128572. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.128572. Epub 2022 Feb 25.
Inadequate access to clean water is detrimental to human health and aquatic industries. Waterborne pathogens can survive prolonged periods in aquatic bodies, infect commercially important seafood, and resist water disinfection, resulting in human infections. Environmental agencies and research laboratories require a relevant, portable, and cost-effective platform to monitor microbial pathogens and assess their risk of infection on a large scale. Advances in microfluidics enable better control and higher precision than traditional culture-based pathogen monitoring approaches. We demonstrated a rapid, high-throughput fish-based teleost (fish)-microbe (TelM) microfluidic-based device that simultaneously monitors waterborne pathogens in contaminated waters and assesses their infection potential under well-defined settings. A chamber-associated port allows direct access to the animal, while the transparency of the TelM platform enables clear observation of sensor readouts. As proof-of-concept, we established a wound infection model using Pseudomonas aeruginosa-contaminated water in the TelM platform, where bacteria formed biofilms on the wound and secreted a biofilm metabolite, pyoverdine. Pyoverdine was used as fluorescent sensor to correlate P. aeruginosa contamination to infection. The TelM platform was validated with environmental waterborne microbes from marine samples. Overall, the TelM platform can be readily applied to assess microbial and chemical risk in aquatic bodies in resource-constrained settings.
清洁水供应不足会对人类健康和水产养殖业造成危害。水传播病原体可以在水体中长时间存活，感染有商业价值的海鲜，并抵抗水消毒，从而导致人类感染。环境机构和研究实验室需要一个相关的、便携的、具有成本效益的平台来监测微生物病原体，并大规模评估它们的感染风险。微流控技术的进步使我们能够比传统的基于培养的病原体监测方法更好地控制和提高精度。我们展示了一种快速、高通量的基于鱼类的硬骨鱼（fish）-微生物（TelM）微流控设备，该设备可以同时监测受污染水中的水传播病原体，并在明确定义的条件下评估它们的感染潜力。一个与腔室相关的端口允许直接接触动物，而 TelM 平台的透明度可以清楚地观察传感器读数。作为概念验证，我们在 TelM 平台中使用受铜绿假单胞菌污染的水建立了伤口感染模型，其中细菌在伤口上形成生物膜并分泌生物膜代谢物——绿脓菌素。绿脓菌素被用作荧光传感器，将铜绿假单胞菌的污染与感染联系起来。该 TelM 平台还验证了来自海洋样本的环境水传播微生物。总的来说，TelM 平台可以很容易地应用于评估资源有限环境中的水生生物和化学风险。
