Technologies that enable the rapid detection and localization of bacterial infections in living animals could address an unmet need for infectious disease diagnostics. We describe a molecular imaging approach for the specific, noninvasive detection of S. aureus based on the activity of the S. aureus secreted nuclease, micrococcal nuclease (MN). Several short synthetic oligonucleotides, rendered resistant to mammalian serum nucleases by various chemical modifications and flanked with a fluorophore and quencher, were activated upon degradation by purified MN and in S. aureus culture supernatants. A probe consisting of a pair of deoxythymidines flanked by several 2'-O-methyl-modified nucleotides was activated in culture supernatants of S. aureus but not in culture supernatants of several other pathogenic bacteria. Systemic administration of this probe to mice bearing S. aureus muscle infections resulted in probe activation at the infection sites in an MN-dependent manner. This new bacterial imaging approach has potential clinical applicability for infections with S. aureus and several other medically important pathogens.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 82. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 28 August 2025.
All research outputs
#627,545
of 31,814,824 outputs
Outputs from Nature Medicine
#2,169
of 10,991 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#5,531
of 355,223 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Nature Medicine
#16
of 89 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 31,814,824 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 10,991 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 110.4. This one has done well, scoring higher than 80% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 355,223 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 89 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 82% of its contemporaries.
