How can surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy improve diagnostics for bacterial infections?

Currently, bacterial infection is still a major global health issue. Although antibiotics have been widely used to control and treat bacterial infections, the overuse and misuse of antibiotics have led to widespread antimicrobial resistance among many bacterial pathogens. Therefore, reducing bacterial infections through rapid and accurate diagnostics is crucial for global public health. Traditional microbiological detection methods have limitations such as poor selectivity, high complexity, and excessive time consumption, highlighting the urgent need to develop efficient and sensitive bacterial diagnosis methods. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), as an emerging technique in clinical settings, holds a promising future for bacterial identification due to its rapid, nondestructive, and cost-effective nature. This invited special report discusses the application of SERS technology in bacterial diagnosis using pure culture, clinical samples, and single-cell Raman analysis. Current challenges and prospects of the technology are also addressed with in-depth discussion.