Metabolically Specific Fluorescent Visualization of Bacterial Infection on Wound Tissues.

The ability to effectively detect bacterial infection in human tissues is important for the timely treatment of the infection. However, traditional techniques fail to visualize bacterial species adhered to host cells in a target-specific manner. Dihydropteroate synthase (DHPS) exclusively exists in bacterial species and metabolically converts -aminobenzoic acid (PABA) to folic acid (FA).