The emergence and spread of bacterial resistance to antibiotics
has developed into one of the most challenging threats to public health.
Antibiotic susceptibility tests (ASTs) for bacterial infections are
now essential, because they provide guidance for physicians in the
selection of antibiotics, to which bacteria will respond. Most current
AST methods require long periods of time, because of bacterial growth
and incubation, leading to a prolonged and overuse of broad-spectrum
antibiotics. Thus, there is a growing demand for methods and technologies
that enable rapid antibiotic susceptibility assessment. Due to advantages
related to cost-effectiveness, rapid response time and high sensitivity,
electrochemical detection methods are promising analytical tools that
can successfully quantify antibiotic uptake and retention in clinically
relevant bacterial strains. This study presents the electroanalytical
quantification of tobramycin (TOB) retention in susceptible and resistant
bacterial strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The electrochemical behavior of TOB was characterized by voltammetry,
identifying redox potentials, the current dependence on pH conditions,
and the detection limit at unmodified glassy carbon electrodes. The
presented methodology was able to distinguish between susceptible
and resistant bacterial strains, and is also capable of identifying
varying degrees of resistance against TOB. The presented approach
detects the immediate interaction of bacteria with an antibiotic,
without the need of complex and cost-intense equipment related to
genomic testing methods.