Surface-Bound Antibiotic for the Detection of β-Lactamases

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been identified as a major threat to public health worldwide. To ensure appropriate use of existing antibiotics, rapid and reliable tests of AMR are necessary. One of the most common and clinically important forms of bacterial resistance is to β-lactam antibiotics (e.g., penicillin). This resistance is often caused by β-lactamases, which hydrolyze β-lactam drugs, rendering them ineffective. Current methods for detecting these enzymes require either time-consuming growth assays or antibiotic mimics such as nitrocefin. Here, we report the development of a surface-bound, clinically relevant β-lactam drug that can be used to detect β-lactamases and that is compatible with a range of high-sensitivity, low-cost, and label-free analytical techniques currently being developed for point-of-care-diagnostics. Furthermore, we demonstrate the use of these functionalized surfaces to selectively detect β-lactamases in complex biological media, such as urine.