School of Biomedical Engineering, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4L8, Canada.
Department of Medicine, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario, L8N 3Z5, Canada.
Adv Mater. 2023 Oct;35(40):e2302641. doi: 10.1002/adma.202302641. Epub 2023 Aug 9.
With food production shifting away from traditional farm-to-table approaches to efficient multistep supply chains, the incidence of food contamination has increased. Consequently, pathogen testing via inefficient culture-based methods has increased, despite its lack of real-time capabilities and need for centralized facilities. While in situ pathogen detection would address these limitations and enable individual product monitoring, accurate detection within unprocessed, packaged food products without user manipulation has proven elusive. Herein, "Lab-in-a-Package" is presented, a platform capable of sampling, concentrating, and detecting target pathogens within closed food packaging, without intervention. This system consists of a newly designed packaging tray and reagent-infused membrane that can be paired universally with diverse pathogen sensors. The inclined food packaging tray maximizes fluid localization onto the sensing interface, while the membrane acts as a reagent-immobilizing matrix and an antifouling barrier for the sensor. The platform is substantiated using a newly discovered Salmonella-responsive nucleic acid probe, which enables hands-free detection of 10 colony forming units (CFU) g target pathogen in a packaged whole chicken. The platform remains effective when contamination is introduced with toolsand surfaces, ensuring widespread efficacy. Its real-world use for in situ detection is simulated using a handheld fluorescence scanner with smartphone connectivity.
随着食品生产从传统的农场到餐桌方法向高效的多步骤供应链转移，食品污染的发生率有所增加。因此，尽管基于培养的病原体检测方法缺乏实时能力且需要集中的设施，但这种方法的应用却有所增加。虽然原位病原体检测可以解决这些限制并实现对单个产品的监测，但在未经用户处理的未加工、包装食品中进行准确检测一直难以实现。在这里，我们提出了“包装内实验室”（Lab-in-a-Package），这是一种能够在不干预的情况下对封闭包装食品内的目标病原体进行采样、浓缩和检测的平台。该系统由一个新设计的包装托盘和注入试剂的膜组成，可以与各种病原体传感器通用配对。倾斜的食品包装托盘可将液体最大程度地定位在感应界面上，而膜则作为试剂固定基质和传感器的防污屏障。该平台使用新发现的对沙门氏菌有响应的核酸探针进行了验证，该探针可在包装完整的整鸡中无需人工操作即可检测到 10 个菌落形成单位（CFU）g 的目标病原体。即使使用工具和表面引入污染，该平台仍然有效，确保了广泛的有效性。我们使用具有智能手机连接功能的手持式荧光扫描仪对其在现场检测中的实际应用进行了模拟。
