Low-cost,
rapid, and accurate acquisition of minimum inhibitory
concentrations (MICs) is key to limiting the development of antimicrobial
resistance (AMR). Until now, conventional antibiotic susceptibility
testing (AST) methods are typically time-consuming, high-cost, and
labor-intensive, making them difficult to accomplish this task. Herein,
an electricity-free, portable, and robust handyfuge microfluidic chip
was developed for on-site AST, termed handyfuge-AST. With simply handheld
centrifugation, the bacterial-antibiotic mixtures with accurate antibiotic
concentration gradients could be generated in less than 5 min. The
accurate MIC values of single antibiotics (including ampicillin, kanamycin,
and chloramphenicol) or their combinations against Escherichia coli could be obtained within 5 h. To
further meet the growing demands of point-of-care testing, we upgraded
our handyfuge-AST with a pH-based colorimetric strategy, enabling
naked eye recognition or intelligent recognition with a homemade mobile
app. Through a comparative study of 60 clinical data (10 clinical
samples corresponding to six commonly used antibiotics), the accurate
MICs by handyfuge-AST with 100% categorical agreements were achieved
compared to clinical standard methods (area under curves, AUCs = 1.00).
The handyfuge-AST could be used as a low-cost, portable, and robust
point-of-care device to rapidly obtain accurate MIC values, which
significantly limit the progress of AMR.
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