Stopping the spread of cholera through water tests

A complex sugar may someday become one of the most effective weapons to stop the spread of cholera, a disease that has claimed thousands of lives in Haiti since the devastating earthquake last year.

A technique developed by University of Central Florida scientists would allow relief workers to test water sources that could be contaminated with the cholera toxin. In the test, the sugar dextran is coated onto iron oxide nanoparticles and then added to a sample of the water. If the cholera toxin is present, the toxin will bind to the nanoparticles’ dextran. This is because dextran looks similar to the cholera toxin receptor (GM1) found on cells’ surface in the victim’s gut.

The technique likely would be less expensive than those currently available, and it would provide results more quickly, enabling workers to restrict access to contaminated sources and limit the spread of the disease.

“It’s really quite amazing,” said UCF assistant professor J. Manuel Perez, the lead researcher on the project. “It means we have a quicker diagnostic tool using a simple and relatively cheap sugar-nanoparticle combination.”

Early studies also show that the technique could someday be used to treat someone infected with cholera, which is caused by poor sanitation and dirty water, and potentially other diseases, Perez said.

More studies are needed to prove the adaptability of the technique, but its impact could be huge. In countries with poor sanitation, outbreaks caused by drinking contaminated water often prove fatal. Deadly toxins also can result from bioterrorism or food contamination.

The UCF-developed technique is faster than current detection methods, and it would likely be less expensive because these nanoparticles are cheap to make in large quantities. The detection instruments are compact in some cases the size of a desktop computer and a handheld calculator, and they could be turned into mobile devices that relief workers or food screeners could use in the field.

Other contributors on the research team include postdoctoral fellows Charalambos Kaittanis and Santimukul Santra of UCF’s NanoScience Technology Center, graduate student Oscar Santiesteban of the Chemistry Department and postdoctoral fellow Tuhina Banerjee from the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences.

Perez, a Puerto Rico native, has broad experience in the academic, research and corporate worlds. A UCF professor since 2005, he works at the NanoScience Technology Center and in the Chemistry Department and Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences in the College of Medicine.

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