Rapid Identification of Legionella Pathogenicity by Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

Abstract Objective To establish Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) can be used as a rapid and reliable method to distinguish virulent strain and mild strain of L. pneumophila . Methods We isolated and characterized of bacterial strains from ATCC and water samples strains, while we analyzed data from SERS technology using gold nanoparticles as a base and cell infections were employed to rapidly detect L. pneumophila strains. Origin 8.0 was used to collect Raman spectra, smooth and homogenize data, and to contrast spectra. Principal component analysis (PCA) was conducted to discriminate differences between groups using the multivariate analysis package PyChem 3.0.5. Results Our results indicated that the peaks of high virulence strains reached ≥4000. This criterion was verified by subsequent cell experiments. In addition, we also conducted SERS rapid identification on the virulence of several collected clinical strains and obtained accurate results. Conclusion The present study indicates that the established SERS protocol can be used as a rapid and reliable method to distinguish virulent and mildly virulent strains of L. pneumophila , which can be further used in clinical samples.