Bacterial detection with electrochemical, SERS, and electrochemical SERS sensors

Bacteria are responsible for a plethora of infectious diseases, with potentially serious complications, including sepsis, especially in young, elderly, and immunocompromised populations. Quick and accurate bacterial detection is becoming critically important, in many areas, e.g. food safety, medical diagnostics, and public health. However, the currently available bacterial detection methods, such as plate culture, flow cytometry, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and polymerase chain reaction, face limitations, being either too time consuming, too costly, or not diagnostically accurate. Alternative approaches seek to provide rapid and accurate diagnostics; electrochemical sensors and optical assays based on surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) aim to minimize cost and processing time while improving diagnostic accuracy. Here, we provide a review of recent reports utilizing these techniques for bacterial detection in various settings, as well as their combination, namely, electrochemical surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (EC-SERS).