A facile one-pot sonochemical synthesis of surface-coated mannosyl protein microspheres for detection and killing of bacteriaElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Detailed experimental details, Table S1 and Fig. S1. See DOI: 10.1039/c1cc13518j

We report a remarkably facile one-pot sonochemical approach to prepare protein microspheres whose shells are covalently decorated with a mannosyl derivative to target Escherichia coli ( E. coli ), while their cores are encapsulated with tetracycline. Conjugated microspheres induced the agglutination of E. coli and increased the anti-bacterial activity of the encapsulated tetracycline by five fold. Sonochemically produced protein microspheres decorated with a mannosyl derivative and encapsulated with an antibiotic selectively bind and kill bacteria.