Rapid measurement of waterborne bacterial viability based on difunctional gold nanoprobe

Rapid measurement of waterborne bacterial viability is crucial for ensuring the safety of public health. Herein, we proposed a colorimetric assay for rapid measurement of waterborne bacterial viability based on a difunctional gold nanoprobe (dGNP). This versatile dGNP is composed of bacteria recognizing parts and signal indicating parts, and can generate color signals while recognizing bacterial suspensions of different viabilities. This dGNP-based colorimetric assay has a fast response and can be accomplished within 10 min. Moreover, the proposed colorimetric method is able to measure bacterial viability between 0% and 100%. The method can also measure the viability of other bacteria including Staphylococcus aureus, Shewanella oneidensis, and Escherichia coli O157H7. Furthermore, the proposed method has acceptable recovery (95.5–104.5%) in measuring bacteria-spiked real samples. This study offers a simple and effective method for the rapid measurement of bacterial viability and therefore should have application potential in medical diagnosis, food safety, and environmental monitoring.