Most recently, dextran-coated iron oxide nanorods with high relaxivity (300 mM?1s?1) were synthesized and used for the detection of MAP, achieving a detection limit of 6 MAP colony forming units in whole milk within 5 minutes50

Most recently, dextran-coated iron oxide nanorods with high relaxivity (300 mM?1s?1) were synthesized and used for the detection of MAP, achieving a detection limit of 6 MAP colony forming units in whole milk within 5 minutes50. Open in a separate window Scheme 3 Detection of viruses and bacteria using magnetic relaxation. detection thresholds. Additionally, as bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, nanotechnology has achieved the rapid determination of bacterial drug susceptibility and resistance using novel methods, such as amperometry and magnetic relaxation. Overall, these promising results hint to the adoption of nanotechnology-based diagnostics for the diagnosis of infectious diseases in diverse settings throughout the globe, preventing epidemics and safeguarding human and economic wellness. 1. Introduction Infectious diseases cause significant human pathogenesis and mortality throughout the world, surpassing cardiovascular diseases and cancer1. Although affluent developed countries have made great progress in sanitation and technological advances to identify and control most infections diseases, problems remain with food contamination, hospital-acquired pathogens, and sexually transmitted diseases2, 3. In poor developing countries and even in rural areas of developed countries, infectious diseases are a major problem mainly because of not only poor sanitation but also the lack of efficient technologies to identify and treat these conditions in a timely manner2, 3. Furthermore, additional transmission routes involving mosquitoes, co-habitation in close contact with infected animals and contaminated water, socioeconomic trends and political instability of several developing nations are additional factors that synergistically contribute to the spread of infectious diseases4. Monoammoniumglycyrrhizinate Thus, improving the living conditions and diagnostic protocols in poor rural areas is critical in controlling the spread of disease before becoming a worldwide pandemic. Also, as modern global traveling facilitates the spread of the disease faster than ever, developing fast, simple and accurate methods to identify infectious diseases is of timely importance. Infectious diseases are caused by contagious agents (pathogens) that are capable of Monoammoniumglycyrrhizinate inducing disease with symptoms that can be manifested within a couple of minutes, or after a couple of hours to days or even years after the initial infection. These pathogenic agents are subject to transmission from either an infected individual or vector (such as ticks, birds or pigs) to a healthy individual4. The complexity and broad range of pathogens that cause disease, in addition to the prolonged incubation time of some of these agents before clinical symptoms of the disease are present, make the diagnosis of some of these conditions even more Monoammoniumglycyrrhizinate challenging. Pathogens that cause disease can be listed within various groups, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, Monoammoniumglycyrrhizinate protozoa, parasitic worms, and prions. Their unique characteristics, ways of transmission, as well as any associated disease biomarkers, such as toxins, antigens and nucleic acids are listed in Table 1. The diversity of these pathogens resides not only on the nature of the disease STK3 they inflict in the host, but also in their size and shape (see also Scheme 1). Open in a separate window Scheme 1 Size distribution of widely used nanosystems in comparison with the most common types of infectious disease agents. A particular nanoparticle (represented by a black horizontal dashed line) could interact differently with targets of various sizes, such as peptides, toxins, viruses and bacteria (blue, grey, green and orange dashed lines, respectively). In this particular case, the nanoparticle has a size of 100 nm, whereas virulence factors and disease markers are smaller (e.g. lipids, peptides, DNA, toxins), and pathogens can be of roughly equivalent (e.g. most viruses) or bigger size than the nanoparticle (e.g. bacteria, fungi, Monoammoniumglycyrrhizinate etc.). Table 1 Standard infectious disease providers. Differences in size, morphology, infection mode, pathogenesis mechanisms, medical symptomology and disease focus on the need for development of sensitive and specific pathogen recognition modalities in varied settings Open in a separate window Open in a separate windowpane Nanotechnology presents a great opportunity to develop fast, accurate and cost effective diagnostics for the detection of pathogenic infectious providers5, 6. Due to the presence of unique properties in nanoscale materials, products able to statement the presence of a pathogenic agent in medical or environmental samples can be designed. The properties observed in nanomaterials are different from those observed in the bulk (micron-size) material because of the small size (1C100 nm) and large surface area, resulting in enhanced surface reactivity, quantum confinement effects, enhanced electrical conductivity and enhanced magnetic properties, among others6. Most importantly, modifications of the nanostructures surface can alter dramatically some of their properties7, 8. Hence, a single binding event can be potentially recorded. Because of these phenomena, multiple nanostructures have been engineered to detect particular molecular focuses on in biodiagnostic applications, including pathogen detection. This article focuses on reviewing some of the most.