Cranberry Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Cranberry, including details on benefits, antioxidants, utis, cystitis.

Prevention of nonspecific bacterial cell adhesion in immunoassays by use of cranberry juice.

Johnson-White B, Buquo L, Zeinali M, Ligler FS

Center for Bio/Molecular Science & Engineering, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375-5348, USA.

The ability of Vaccinum macrocarpon, the North American cranberry, to prevent bacterial adhesion has been used to advantage in the prevention of urinary tract infections and has recently been described for the prevention of adhesion of bacteria responsible for oral infections and stomach ulcers. This report documents the ability of cranberry juice to reduce nonspecific adhesion of bacteria to the borosilicate glass microscope slides used in an immunoarray biosensor format. Nonspecific binding of analytes in the array sensor leads to high background signals that cause increased detection limits and false positives. Reduction in background-to-signal ratios can be seen as the juice concentration is increased from 0 to 50% of the sample. This impact cannot be duplicated with grape, orange, apple, or white cranberry juice. Sugar content and pH have been eliminated as the agents in the juice responsible for the anti-adhesive activity.

Published 1 February 2006 in Anal Chem, 78(3): 853-7.
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