A comparative study on microbial growth sensor and broth microdilution for antibiotic susceptibility testing

Abstract:

Antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) is of great significance to the assessment of environmental health of fisheries, clinical applications, epidemiological research, etc. Here, the merits of an automated microbial-growth electrical-sensor-based AST method are compared with the standard broth microdilution (BMD) method, using Vibrio parahaemolyticus (VP) as a microorganism model, and tetracycline, kanamycin, enrofloxacin, and penicillin V as antibiotics model. Results show that the essential agreement of the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) obtained with the two methods is 100%, for both standard and isolated VP strains. The MICs obtained with the automated microbial-growth electrical-sensor-based AST method are no lower than those obtained with the BMD method, indicating that the senor is more sensitive than visual detection in identifying critical values. In addition, a dynamic sensorgram of the automated microbial-growth electrical-sensor-based AST provides more detailed information on the antibiotic activity at different growth stages. Because of the outstanding merits of sensitivity, efficiency, and user-friendly operation, microbial-growth electrical-sensor-based AST is a promising method that can be applied widely in the future.