Journal of Environmental Biotechnology
Vol. 6, No. 2, 105–108, 2006

Review (special issue)

Polyphosphate-ATP Amplification Technology:
Principle and its Application to Detection of Specific Bacteria
YASUO ASAMI1, TETSUYA SATOH1 and AKIO KURODA1,2*1

Department of Molecular Biotechnology, Graduate School of Advanced Sciences of Matter, Hiroshima University,
1-3-1 Kagamiyama, Higashi-Hiroshima, Hiroshima 739-8530, Japan
2
SORST, Japan Science and Technology Corporation, Kawaguchi, Saitama 332-0012, Japan* TEL: 082-424-7758 FAX: 082-424-7047* E-mail: akuroda@hiroshima-u.ac.jp(Received; 10 August, 2006/Accepted; 20 September, 2006)
Key words: ATP, polyphosphate, bioluminescence, immunomagnetic beads, bacteria detection

1. Bioluminescence assay is useful but notsensitive enough to detect a single bacterial cell
Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) plays a central role in all
aspects of metabolism, and, therefore, the development ofmethods to detect very low concentrations of ATP is very
important in many areas of pure and applied biochemistry3). The firefly luciferase-based (bioluminescence) assay for
detecting ATP is a well-established technique and has beenused as a way to rapidly monitor microorganisms in the environments or the hygiene of food and non-food contactsurfaces1). Furthermore, the bioluminescence assay may also
be used for warning and detection of attacks by biological
warfare agents4). This assay technique, however, has a detection limit of approximately 10,000 colony-forming units(CFUs) of Escherichia coli per assay, which is not sensitive
enough for detecting dangerous pathogenic bacteria5).

2.

Polyphosphate-ATP amplification allows
detection of a single bacterial cellTo increase the sensitivity of the bioluminescence assay,
we have developed the polyphosphate-ATP amplification(ATP amplification) reaction5). This amplification reaction
takes advantage of (i) adenylate kinase (ADK), which converts adenosine monophosphate (AMP) and ATP to twomolecules of adenosine diphosphate (ADP); and (ii) polyphosphate (polyP) kinase (PPK), which converts two molecules of ADP back to two molecules of ATP (Fig. 1). Using
these reactions, ATP is amplified exponentially, resulting inhigh levels of bioluminescence in the firefly luciferase reaction5). The amplification enzyme was prepared from E. coli
harboring a plasmid for expressing a PPK-ADK-His tagfusion. The highly purified PPK-ADK fusion enzyme successfully amplified ATP depending on its initial concentration (Fig. 2). ATP amplification for 60 min prior to the bio-Fig. 1. Principle of ATP amplification.
The reaction mixture for the ATP amplification contains AMP, excess polyP, and the amplification enzyme (PPK-ADK). In the absence ofATP, ATP amplification is not initiated; ATP amplification starts only when exogenous ATP is added to the reaction mixture. n, numberof phosphate residues in polyP.

ASAMI et al.

106Fig. 2. Time course of bioluminescence during ATP amplification.
(A) ATP amplification was started by adding a 2-µl ATP sample to 48 µl of a reaction mixture containing 0.16 µg of ADK-PPK, 10 µM
AMP, 400 µM polyP, 8 mM MgCl2, and 60 mM Tris-HCl (pH 7.4). The reaction mixture was incubated at 37°C. After appropriate periods of incubation, 5 µl of the reaction mixture was removed and mixed with 40 µl of ATP bioluminescence assay reagent (Roche). The
amount of ATP that was initially present in the 5-µl reaction mixture is indicated. (B) E. coli cells (early stationary phase; 2.0×109 CFU/ml) were appropriately diluted. The cell suspensions (500 µl) were mixed with 500 µl of lysis buﬀer (Roche) and incubated at 100°C for
2 min. Heated samples (2 µl) were subjected to ATP amplification prior to the bioluminescence assay. The CFU of E. coli present in the5-µl reaction mixture is indicated.

Fig. 3.

Schematic representation for detection of specific bacteria using immunomagnetic beads coupled with ATP amplification.

luminescence assay enabled the detection of as little as10–18 mol of ATP, whereas the conventional bioluminescenceassay requires as much as 10–14 mol of ATP to obtain a signal5). The intracellular level of ATP in viable E. coli cells isknown as approximately 2×10–18 mol of ATP per cell. Thislevel of ATP is almost equal to that of the detection limit of
our ultrasensitive bioluminescence assay. In fact, with thistechnology, we could detect a single CFU of E. coli per assay(Fig. 2). In the absence of E. coli, no signal was obtainedeven after a 60-min reaction (Fig. 2). The results show that
this new biochemical reaction is useful for detecting contamination by as little as a single bacterial cell5).

3.

Critical aspects for success of the ATP
amplification technology

Using computer simulation, Chittock et al. also previously
proposed an ATP amplification to enhance the sensitivity ofATP detection2), but it has been very diﬃcult to apply thisidea because very small amounts of ATP contaminationmust be eliminated from the reaction mixture before examination. If not, ATP amplification starts even in the absenceof exogenous ATP. Therefore, to eliminate possible contamination by ATP, all buﬀers and equipment were autoclavedfor 120 min. In addition, commercial AMP used for the assay was purified by ion-exchange column chromatography.

Polyphosphate-ATP amplification

107

The most diﬃcult problem was that ADP bound to the amplification enzyme PPK-ADK even after purification5). Because this ADP could be converted to ATP by PPK in thepresence of polyP, ATP amplification could be initiatedwithout the addition of exogenous ATP. To eliminate ADP
contamination, we treated PPK-ADK with polyP to releasebound ADP from the enzyme. The resulting ATP was thendegraded to AMP with apyrase, and the PPK-ADK was
further purified with a chelating column5). The addition of0.1 M pyrophosphate (almost saturated) to washing andelution buﬀers was eﬀective at releasing any remaining ADP
from the enzyme5). As a result of the combination of theseprecautions, ATP amplification in the absence of exogenous
ATP was not observed for at least 60 min (Fig. 2).

4. Application of ATP amplification technology
With this technology, it is possible to amplify the very
low levels of ATP extracted from a single bacterial cell toquantities that can be detected without a highly sensitive
photometer. We therefore attempted to apply the ATP amplification technology to the monitoring of hygiene. TheATP amplification enhanced the sensitivity of swab monitoring by approximately 10,000-fold5). We further examined
the ability of the ATP amplification to enhance the sensitivity of detecting bacterial contamination in drinking water.
We found that the ATP amplification prior to bioluminescence assay allowed us to detect contamination by a singlebacterium5). This sensitivity far exceeds that of conventional
bioluminescence assays, and these results show that this newtechnology can be applied to a wide range of hygiene monitoring tasks.

5.

Detection of specific bacteria

Although ATP amplification is an interesting technology
for detecting a single bacterial cell, but it can never inform
us which bacteria contaminate a reaction mixture. Therefore, to adapt this technology to the detection of specificbacteria, we have combined it with the use of immunomagnetic beads technology6) to trap target bacteria (Fig. 3).
After washing out non-target bacteria and exogenous ATP,the ATP is extracted from the target bacteria and amplified(Fig. 3). Here we prepared S. aureus and E. coli suspension
at concentrations of 104 cells/ml. Immunomagnetic separation was performed with an antibody against S. aureus. The
recovery rates of cells were calculated on the basis of colony
forming units of cell suspensions before and after immunomagnetic separation. The recovery rate of S. aureus cells by
immunomagnetic separation with an antibody against S.
aureus was about 30%, while E. coli cells were not recovered with an antibody against S. aureus (less than 0.1%).
The cell suspensions after immunomagnetic separation were
subjected to ATP amplification and bioluminescence reaction. Amplified bioluminescence signals were obtained fromS. aureus suspension, while not from E. coli suspensions.

Fig. 4. Detection of S. aureus by using immunomagnetic beads
coupled with ATP amplification.
The magnetic beads coated with anti-mouse IgG antibody(Fishers, IN, USA) were mixed with mouse monoclonal antibodies against S. aureus, (Funakoshi, Tokyo, JAPAN) in aPBS buﬀer (6 mM potassium phosphate, pH 7.2, 140 mMNaCl). The amount of antibodies and magnetic beads toachieve surface saturation was calculated following the manufacturer’s instructions. The suspension was mixed for 30 min
at 60 rpm (Dynal Sample Mixer, Dynal, Lake Success, NY,USA) at 4°C. The beads were then removed from the solution
with a magnet and resuspended in the PBS buﬀer containing1% BSA. These steps were repeated three times and resuspended in the PBS buﬀer containing 1% BSA and 0.02%
NaN3. Microbial cells that grew on nutrient medium were diluted with the PBS buﬀer. The cell suspension was mixed withthe prepared immunomagnetic beads for 60 min at 60 rpm at
4°C. Using a magnetic separator, these complexes were concentrated to the magnet side of the tube wall. The supernatant
was discarded by pipetting while the tube was on the magnet.
The bead–bacteria complexes were resuspended in the PBS
buﬀer (1 mL). The separation and washing steps were repeated
twice. At the final washing step, the entire pellet was resuspended in 100 µl lysis buﬀer where ATP was extracted fromthe cells into the liquid portion. The entire liquid was thentransferred to a microbial tube. ATP amplification was started
by adding a 2-µl ATP sample to 48 µl of a reaction mixture
containing 0.16 µg of ADK-PPK, 10 µM of AMP, 400 µM ofpolyP, 8 mM MgCl2, and 60 mM Tris-HCl (pH 7.4). The reaction mixture was incubated at 37°C. After 60 min-incubation,a 5-µl reaction mixture was sampled and mixed with 40 µl of
the ATP bioluminescence assay reagent (Roche, Basel, Switzerland). Bioluminescence was measured by using a multiplate
luminometer (Wallac, Massachusetts, U.S.A).

These signals could not be obtained without using ATPamplification. The S. aureus suspensions after immunomagnetic separation subjected to ATP amplification contained ten CFUs of S. aureus.
PCR technology is now being used to detect contamination by low levels of specific bacteria within several hours.
The ATP amplification can currently be completed in 10 to
20 min, and theoretically it could be much fast. Thus, webelieve that this improved ATP amplification technology
could be used for the detection of specific bacteria.

ASAMI et al.

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