Computerized high-tech detection technology of immunofluorescence labelled waterborne pathogenic bacteria

Abstract

The waterborne pathogenic bacteria, especially the enteric bacteria of human fecal origin, have become currently a global public health issue. The detection and quantification of drinking water microorganisms have been an essential part of any quality control or water safety management plan interconnected to enteric bacterial pathogens such as Salmonella spp., Shigella spp., Vibrio cholerae or to non-faecal bacterial pathogens such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The standard methods of detecting waterborne pathogenic bacteria are time-consuming due to the bacterial growing step in a specific culture media, followed by isolation, microbiological and/or serological identiûcation and in some cases followed by subspeciûc characterization. This study aimed to develop a faster, powerful, more sensitive and reproducible diagnostic tool to monitor a specific pathogen contamination in drinking water (Pseudomonas aeruginosa) by specific antibody-antigen interactions followed by a computerized technology to identify bacteria as a digital image from water samples. Digital Image processing was carried out using National Instruments Vision Assistant Software. Pseudomonas aeruginosa was specifically detected by immunofluorescence technique with fluorophore tagged antibodies, and then the image formation in fluorescence microscopy was processed by computer vision software functions organized in pipeline-like data analysis processing. Overall, these techniques proved to be a reliable one, time-effective and sensitive for diagnosis and prevention of drinking water quality and waterborne bacterial disease.