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Porphyromonas gingivalis is a keystone pathogen in periodontal disease. We herein report a dual-modal fluorescent and photoacoustic imaging probe for the detection of gingipain proteases secreted by P. gingivalis. Upon proteolytic cleavage by Arg-specific gingipain (RgpB), five-fold photoacoustic enhancement and100-fold fluorescence activation was measured with detection limits of 1.1 nM RgpB and 5.0E4 CFU mL

The transmission of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has led to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nucleic acid testing while specific has limitations for mass surveillance. One alternative is the main protease (M(pro)) due to its functional importance in mediating the viral life cycle. Here, we describe a combination of modular substrate and gold colloids to detect M(pro) via visual readout. The strategy involves zwitterionic peptide that carries opposite charges at the C-/N-terminus to exploit the specific recognition by M(pro). Autolytic cleavage releases positively-charged moiety that assembles the nanoparticles with rapid color changes (t