A novel toxicity fingerprinting method for pollutant identification with lux‐marked biosensors

Abstract

A novel technique is described for the identification and quantification of environmental pollutants based on toxicity fingerprinting with a metabolic lux-marked bacterial biosensor. This method involved characterizing the toxicity-based responses of the biosensor to seven calibration pollutants as acute temporal-dose response fingerprints. An algorithm is described to allow comparisons of responses of an unknown pollutant to be made against the calibration data. This is based on predicting pollutant concentration at each of six different time points over the course of a 5-min assay. If the prediction is consistent between the unknown pollutant and a calibration pollutant at the 95% test level, this is considered to be a positive identification. All seven calibration pollutants could be successfully distinguished from each other with this technique. Environmental samples, individually spiked with single concentrations of pollutants, were compared in this way against the calibration pollutants. An 83% identification success was achieved, with no false positives at the 95% test level. This is a simple and rapid technique that potentially can be applied to monitoring of industrial wastewater or as a screening tool for regulators.

Air-Water Partition Constants for Volatile Methyl Siloxanes

“…If P* is expressed in atmospheres, then R is 82.05 cm 3 · atm · K Ϫ1 · mol Ϫ1 . T is temperature in K. Two classes of methods exist to determine H c , namely, static and dynamic [3,4]. In the static method, the two phases (i.e., air and water) are brought to equilibrium, and the concentration in both is measured.…”

Biosensors for environmental pollutants and food contaminants

“…The dose-response relationship between seven commonly used herbicides and four luminescence-based bacterial biosensors was characterized [119]. Similarly, a fingerprinting method was established based on metabolic lux-marked bacteria [120]. Kim et al even suggest using mammalian cells for endocrine-like characteristics of environmental pollutants, since these are more sensitive than the bacterial systems [121].…”

Cell Microarray Technologies for High-Throughput Cell-Based Biosensors

“…As mentioned earlier, cell-based biosensors, which incorporate cellular components, represent a distinct enhancement in terms of functional information [186]. For example, in a cell-based biosensor system for pathogen detection, these types of assays not only indicate the presence of pathogens, but they can also provide practical instructions about the pathogens such as mode of action of the pathogen or toxin as well as biological and physiological host–pathogen interactions [187,188]. …”