Correction to: SERS characterization of aggregated and isolated bacteria deposited on silver-based substrates (Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, (2021), 413, 5, (1417-1428), 10.1007/s00216-020-03106-5)

In the original version of this article, the SEM image of the S. aureus ATCC 43300 strain, recorded on an electron microscope ULTRA 55 (Zeiss, France), shown in Figure 1a was incorrect. This image does not correspond to S. aureus ATCC 43300 bacteria as specified in the figure caption and should therefore be disregarded. Figure 1 reduces to the image originally published as Figure 1b, and the caption should read: “SEM image of E. coli JM101TR deposited at 10¹⁰ CFU mL^-1 on the 7-nm-thick Ag substrate”. Accordingly, the last two sentences of the first paragraph of Subsection “SERS signature of densely packed bacteria on glass/Ag NS surfaces” should read: “The SEM image (Fig. 1) reveals the formation of large domains of interlinked bacteria with small areas of naked Ag substrate for E. coli. The rod-like shape of E. coli is preserved.” The correction does not change the conclusion of this work. Furthermore, the conflict-of-interest statement is revised to note that Sabine Szunerits is an editor of this journal but was not involved in the peer review process or editorial handling of this article. The remaining authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. Figure 1. SEM images of (a) S. aureus ATCC 43300 deposited at 10⁸ CFU mL^-1 and (b) E. coli JM101TR deposited at 10¹⁰ CFU mL^-1 on the 7 nm-thick Ag substrate Figure 1. SEM image of E. coli JM101TR deposited at 10¹⁰ CFU mL⁻¹ on the 7-nm-thick Ag substrate The observation that E. coli bacteria keep their original shape when densely packed nevertheless remains true for S. aureus. A SEM image of S. aureus ATCC 43300 dated from the time where these experiments were performed is no longer available. However, more recently recorded SEM images of dense assemblies of S. aureus ATCC 43300 bacteria on 7-nm-thick Ag layer deposited on glass validate that concept.