RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Real-time environmental monitoring of contaminants using living electronic sensors
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2021.06.04.447163
DO 10.1101/2021.06.04.447163
A1 Joshua T. Atkinson
A1 Lin Su
A1 Xu Zhang
A1 George N. Bennett
A1 Jonathan J. Silberg
A1 Caroline M. Ajo-Franklin
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/06/04/2021.06.04.447163.abstract
AB Real-time chemical sensing is needed to counter the global threats posed by pollution. We combine synthetic biology and materials engineering to develop a living bioelectronic sensor platform with minute detection times. Escherichia coli was programmed to reduce an electrode in a chemical-dependent manner using a modular, eight-component, synthetic electron transport chain. This strain produced significantly more current upon exposure to thiosulfate, an anion that causes microbial blooms. Incorporating a protein switch into the synthetic pathway and encapsulation of microbes with electrodes and conductive nanomaterials yielded a living bioelectronic sensor that could detect an endocrine disruptor within two minutes in riverine water, implicating the signal as mass transfer limited. These findings provide a new platform for miniature, low-power sensors that safeguard ecological and human health.One Sentence Summary Chemicals are detected electrically using an allosterically-regulated electron transfer pathway in designer microbes.Competing Interest StatementJ.J.S., J.T.A., and G.N.B. have submitted a patent application (No 16/186,226) covering the use of fragmented proteins as chemical-dependent electron carriers, entitled Regulating electron flow using fragmented proteins.