Ismail Hakki Boyaci

Magnetic gold nanoparticles in SERS-based sandwich immunoassay for antigen detection by well oriented antibodies.

The aim of the study was to develop an indirect, robust and simple in application method for the detection of bovine leukemia virus antigen gp51. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) was applied as detection method. Magnetic gold nanoparticles (MNP-Au) modified by antibodies in oriented or random manner were used for the binding of gp51. The high performance liquid chromatography analysis indicated that the best antibody immobilization and antigen capturing efficiency was achieved using fragmented antibodies obtained after reduction of intact antibodies with dithiothreitol. In order to increase efficiency and sensitivity of immunoassay Raman labels consisting of gold nanorods coated by 5-thio-nitrobenzoic acid layer with covalently bounded antibodies have been constructed. The LOD and LOQ of the proposed immunoassay for antigen gp51 detection were found to be 0.95μgmL(-1) and 3.14μgmL(-1), respectively. This immunoassay was successfully applied for the detection of gp51 in milk samples in a rapid, reliable and selective manner. We believe that the proposed SERS-based immunoassay format can be applied for the detection of other proteins.

A novel glucose biosensor platform based on Ag@AuNPs modified graphene oxide nanocomposite and SERS application

This study represents a novel template demonstration of a glucose biosensor based on mercaptophenyl boronic acid (MBA) terminated Ag@AuNPs/graphene oxide (Ag@AuNPs-GO) nanomaterials. The nanocomposites were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) method. The TEM image shows that Ag@AuNPs in the nanocomposite is in the range of diameters of 10-20 nm. The nanocomposite was used for the determination of glucose through the complexation between boronic acid and diol groups of glucose. Thus, a novel glucose biosensor was further fabricated by immobilizing glucose oxidase (GOD) into MBA terminated Ag@AuNPs-GO nanocomposite film (MBA-Ag@AuNPs-GO). The linearity range of glucose was obtained as 2-6mM with detection limit of 0.33 mM. The developed biosensor was also applied successfully for the determination of glucose in blood samples. The concentration value of glucose in blood samples was calculated to be 1.97±0.002 mM from measurements repeated for six times.

Detoxification of aflatoxin B1 and patulin by Enterococcus faecium strains

Aim of the present study was to investigate the detoxification of aflatoxin B(1) and patulin from aqueous solution by probiotic culture of Enterococcus faecium M74 and commercial culture of E. faecium EF031. The effect of the bacterial viability, incubation time and pH of the medium on the binding ability was tested. Also, binding stability was determined by washing the bacteria-mycotoxin complexes with phosphate buffer saline. Both M74 and EF031 strains have the ability to remove aflatoxin B(1) and patulin. While M74 removes 19.3 to 30.5% of aflatoxin B(1) and 15.8 to 41.6% of patulin, EF031 removes 23.4 to 37.5% of aflatoxin B(1) and 19.5 to 45.3% of patulin throughout a 48 h incubation period. The removal of aflatoxin B(1) and patulin was highest at pH 7.0 and 4.0, respectively. The stability of the aflatoxin B(1) and patulin complexes formed with the bacterial strains was found to be high. The viability of the bacteria did not have any significant effect on the detoxification of aflatoxin B(1) and patulin. Detoxification properties of E. faecium could represent new strategies for a possible application in the human diet and animal feed.

Rapid analysis of sugars in honey by processing Raman spectrum using chemometric methods and artificial neural networks

The aim of this study was to quantify glucose, fructose, sucrose and maltose contents of honey samples using Raman spectroscopy as a rapid method. By performing a single measurement, quantifications of sugar contents have been said to be unaffordable according to the molecular similarities between sugar molecules in honey matrix. This bottleneck was overcome by coupling Raman spectroscopy with chemometric methods (principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares (PLS)) and an artificial neural network (ANN). Model solutions of four sugars were processed with PCA and significant separation was observed. This operation, done with the spectral features by using PLS and ANN methods, led to the discriminant analysis of sugar contents. Models/trained networks were created using a calibration data set and evaluated using a validation data set. The correlation coefficient values between actual and predicted values of glucose, fructose, sucrose and maltose were determined as 0.964, 0.965, 0.968 and 0.949 for PLS and 0.965, 0.965, 0.978 and 0.956 for ANN, respectively. The requirement of rapid analysis of sugar contents of commercial honeys has been met by the data processed within this article.

A novel method for discrimination of beef and horsemeat using Raman spectroscopy

A new approach, based on the usage of Raman spectroscopy in combination with chemometrics, was developed for the rapid determination of beef adulteration with horsemeat. The data mining process of collected Raman spectra was performed with principal component analysis (PCA). Pure fat samples, extracted from forty-nine meat beef and horsemeat samples, were analysed using the Raman spectroscopy. All meat samples were classified successfully according to their origins. The presence of different concentrations (25%, 50%, 75%, w/w) of horsemeat in beef was also differentiated using the developed model system. This study offers a rapid assay for determination of meat adulteration by discriminating beef and horsemeat with high accuracy, a short analysis time (30s) and no requirement for time-consuming sample preparation procedures.

Comparison of sensing strategies in SPR biosensor for rapid and sensitive enumeration of bacteria.

Rapid and sensitive detections of microorganisms are very important for biodefence, food safety, medical diagnosis and pharmaceutics. The present study aims to find out the most proper bioactive surface preparation method to develop rapid, sensitive and selective bacteria biosensor, based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) spectroscopy. Escherichia coli (E. coli) was used as a model bacterium and four sensing strategies in SPR were tested. Three of these strategies are antibody immobilization methods that are non-specific adsorption, specific adsorption via the avidin-biotin interaction, and immobilization of antibodies via self-assembled monolayer formation. The fourth strategy is a novel method for bacteria enumeration based on the combination of the SPR spectroscopy and immunomagnetic separation with using gold-coated magnetic nanoparticles. According to results, the most efficient SPR method is the one based on gold-coated magnetic nanoparticles. This method allows to specifically separate E. coli from the environment and to quantify rapidly without any labeling procedure. The developed method has a linear range between 30 and 3.0 × 10(4)cfu/ml, and a detection limit of 3 cfu/ml. The selectivity of the method was examined with Enterobacter aerogenes and Enterobacter dissolvens, which did not produce any significant response. The usefulness of the method to detect E. coli in real water samples was also investigated, and the results were compared with the results from plate-counting method. There was no significant difference between the methods (p>0.05).

Attomole sensitivity of staphylococcal enterotoxin B detection using an aptamer-modified surface-enhanced Raman scattering probe.

In this report, we present a new homogeneous detection method for staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) utilizing core-shell-structured iron-gold magnetic nanoparticles and a gold nanorod surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) probe in solution. Peptide ligand (aptamer) functionalized magnetic gold nanorod particles were used as scavengers for target SEB. After the SEB molecules were separated from the matrix, the sandwich assay procedure was tested by gold nanorod particles that act as SERS probes. The binding constant between SEB and peptide-nanoparticle complex was determined as 8.0 × 10(7) M(-1). The correlation between the SEB concentration and SERS signal was found to be linear within the range of 2.5 fM to 3.2 nM. The limit of detection for the homogeneous assay was determined as 224 aM (ca. 2697 SEB molecules/20 μL sample volume). Also, gold-coated surfaces were used as capture substrates and performances of the two methods were compared. Furthermore, the developed method was evaluated for investigating the SEB specificity on bovine serum albumin (BSA) and avidin and detecting SEB in artificially contaminated milk, blood, and urine.

Determination of butter adulteration with margarine using Raman spectroscopy.

In this study, adulteration of butter with margarine was analysed using Raman spectroscopy combined with chemometric methods (principal component analysis (PCA), principal component regression (PCR), partial least squares (PLS)) and artificial neural networks (ANNs). Different butter and margarine samples were mixed at various concentrations ranging from 0% to 100% w/w. PCA analysis was applied for the classification of butters, margarines and mixtures. PCR, PLS and ANN were used for the detection of adulteration ratios of butter. Models were created using a calibration data set and developed models were evaluated using a validation data set. The coefficient of determination (R(2)) values between actual and predicted values obtained for PCR, PLS and ANN for the validation data set were 0.968, 0.987 and 0.978, respectively. In conclusion, a combination of Raman spectroscopy with chemometrics and ANN methods can be applied for testing butter adulteration.

Determination of apparent kinetic parameters for competitive product inhibition in packed-bed immobilized enzyme reactors

Abstract In this study, a simple and effective technique for characterizing Michaelis–Menten type kinetics with competitive product inhibition in packed-bed re-circulated immobilized enzyme reactors is presented, where the use of nonlinear regression techniques for multi-parameter estimation are not required. In order to demonstrate the new technique introduced in this work, enzymatic conversion of lactose in a recycling packed-bed reactor is envisaged where β-galactosidase (lactase, EC 3.2.1.23) enzyme is immobilized on a weak base ion exchanger resin (Duolite A 568). For the experimental conditions used in this research, the total competitive inhibition by product (galactose) model is sufficient to represent the lactose hydrolysis kinetics in a packed-bed reactor.

Decontamination of Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus spores on hazelnuts via atmospheric pressure fluidized bed plasma reactor.

In this study, an atmospheric pressure fluidized bed plasma (APFBP) system was designed and its decontamination effect on aflatoxigenic fungi (Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus) on the surface of hazelnuts was investigated. Hazelnuts were artificially contaminated with A. flavus and A. parasiticus and then were treated with dry air plasma for up to 5min in the APFBP system at various plasma parameters. Significant reductions of 4.50 log (cfu/g) in A. flavus and 4.19 log (cfu/g) in A. parasiticus were achieved after 5min treatments at 100% V - 25kHz (655W) by using dry air as the plasma forming gas. The decontamination effect of APFBP on A. flavus and A. parasiticus spores inoculated on hazelnuts was increased with the applied reference voltage and the frequency. No change or slight reductions were observed in A. flavus and A. parasiticus load during the storage of plasma treated hazelnuts whereas on the control samples fungi continued to grow under storage conditions (30days at 25°C). Temperature change on hazelnut surfaces in the range between 35 and 90°C was monitored with a thermal camera, and it was demonstrated that the temperature increase taking place during plasma treatment did not have a lethal effect on A. flavus and A. parasiticus spores. The damage caused by APFBP treatment on Aspergillus spp. spores was also observed by scanning electron microscopy.