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영어

Recently terrorist action poses the threat of bio-warfare using potential harmful bacterial spores. The anthrax attack of Oct 2001 in USA demonstrates the need for a rapid detection system for spores of Bacillus anthracis. In this work we have developed bacterial endospore detection technique based on the reaction dipicolinic acid (DPA) with terbium ion (TbCl3) and fabricated a prototype of spore detection system. The detector measures the fluorescence emission of DP
A․TbCl3 in the Bacillus spores. The detection system consists of a air sampling device, band-pass filters and a photomultiplier tube array, which measures fluorescence intensity in the wavelength band from 550 nm to 565 nm. The DPA․TbCl3 complex has fluorescence emission band arround 560 nm, when it is excited by UV light in the excitation wavelength range around 280
nm. The experimental parameters investigated spores concentrated form air, amount of DPA release from Bacillus subtilis spores by dodecylamine solution. The limit of detection was 1000 CFU/ml.