Christy Haynes1
University of Minnesota1
There are a variety of small molecule toxins found in crops that present hazards in food production and consumption. This work exploits polymers as capture agents for various toxin targets such as mycotoxins. By attaching short, anchored polymer chains complexed with the target of interest to plasmonic substrates, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) can be employed to detect the mycotoxins. SERS is an attractive analytical signal transduction mechanism due to its high enhancement factors and the ability to assign specific vibrational modes to certain molecules, even at very low concentrations. By providing fingerprint spectra for various targets, one can easily detect more than one target mycotoxin in relevant complex matrices. Pairing experimental SERS with computational modeling helps confirm hypotheses about binding and target/polymer interaction. Overall, this talk will demonstrate optimization of SERS sensing to achieve limits of detection comparable to current detection methods with a simpler and more flexible signal transduction mechanism, providing an opportunity for future applications in complex matrices where these toxins are traditionally found.