Parallelised detection of bacteria viability using an electrode array and the Exeter Multiscope

Antimicrobial resistance remains a global existential threat. Given that antimicrobial therapy commonly starts before pathogen identification, rapid and scalable methods capable of determining effective antimicrobial compounds are needed. In this paper, we demonstrate a 2 x 2 array of parallelised microscopes that uses low numerical aperture (NA=0.25) detection optics and LED excitation to determine bacterial viability based on their fluorescence response to an electrical stimulus. Following a 2-hour incubation, the fluorescent viability readout requires less than one minute. We use K-means clustering to classify pixels in a time lapse sequence of widefield fluorescence images and extract changes seen within bacterial clusters. We demonstrate sufficient sensitivity to measure fluorescence changes after electrical stimulation in a bacterial monolayer. To capture these subtle fluorescence changes at high signal-to-background ratios, we place a limit on the minimum optical density of the bacterial sample. This novel approach is scalable to 96-well formats using a suitable consumable electrode array.