Bacterial contamination poses significant threats to public health through food safety issues, creating a critical need for rapid and sensitive bacterial detection platforms. Herein, we developed a novel label-free fluorescent detection system leveraging target-triggered hybridization chain reaction (HCR) amplification, using Escherichia coli (E. coli) as a proof of concept. We engineered a hairpin-structured capture probe integrating an E. coli-specific aptamer with an HCR trigger sequence, achieving fluorescence amplification through three sy...
