Identification and antimicrobial susceptibility test of Arcobacter in agri-foods using a microfluidic "lab-on-a-chip" device

近年来，弓形杆菌已被认为是一种新兴的食源性和水源性致病菌，也是一种潜在的人畜共患病病原体。越来越多的耐药性病原体，包括弓形杆菌属，已被确定从食品传播到人类，并对公共卫生造成严重威胁。需要快速检测技术为农业食品系统提供及时的抗生素耐药性监测数据，以缓解抗生素耐药性危机。对于这个NSERC联盟国际催化剂项目，我们的目标是开发一种微流控装置，用于Arcobacter物种的鉴定和抗菌药物敏感性测试。微阵列的细菌孵育室将在聚合物为基础的微流控装置，显色介质和抗生素将被加载。将通过显色反应引起的颜色变化观察弓形杆菌的生长。并对该装置用于人工污染鸡肉和牛奶中弓形杆菌鉴定的特异性和灵敏度进行了评价。然后，将通过可抑制细菌生长且未观察到颜色变化的最低抗生素浓度评价弓形杆菌的芯片上抗菌药物敏感性。该设备将有可能减少总分析时间，并简化最终用户的食品样品制备和芯片操作。我们预计，由于芯片实验室平台的小型化尺寸，通过这种微流体装置的检测将通过使用比标准微生物参考方法少500倍的试剂来实现。该设备具有广泛的应用潜力，特别是在加拿大和世界各地的资源有限的地区，在Arcostrant相关的食品安全管理和诊断。

In the recent years, Arcobacter has been considered as an emerging food- and water-borne pathogen and potential zoonotic agent. An increasing frequency of antibiotic-resistant pathogens, including Arcobacter species, has been identified to transmit from food products to humans and cause severe threat to the public health. Rapid detection techniques are required to provide timely antimicrobial resistance surveillance data for agri-food systems so as to mitigate the antibiotic resistance crisis. For this NSERC Alliance International Catalyst project, we aim to develop a microfluidic device for the identification and antimicrobial susceptibility tests of Arcobacter species. An microarray of bacterial incubation chambers will be developed in a polymer-based microfluidic device where chromogenic medium and antibiotics will be loaded. The growth of Arcobacter will be visualized by the color change due to the chromogenic reactions. The specificity and sensitivity of this device for the identification of Arcobacter in artificially contamianted chicken meat and milk will be evaluated. Then, on-chip antimicrobial susceptibility of Arcobacter will be evaluated by the lowest concentration of antibiotics that can inhibit the bacterial growth with no color change observed. This device will have the potential to reduce the total analysis time as well as simplify food sample preparation and chip operation for the end users. We expect that the detection by this microfluidic device will be achieved by using up to 500 times less of the reagents than with the standard microbiological reference methods due to the miniaturized size of the lab-on-a-chip platform. This device has the potential for wide applications in Arcobacter-associated food safety management and diagnostics especially in the resource-limited regions in Canada and worldwide.