Premium
Development of an Arsenic Sensitive Bacterial Biosensor and San Diego Soil Testing
Author(s) -
Magsumbol Alisson Mae,
Magee Moriah S,
Provost Joseph John
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.31.1_supplement.767.17
Subject(s) - biosensor , arsenic , arsenate , arsenite , chemistry , environmental chemistry , arsenic contamination of groundwater , fluorescence , substrate (aquarium) , chromatography , biochemistry , biology , organic chemistry , ecology , physics , quantum mechanics
Arsenic occurs naturally and is found in either oxidation states of arsenite (As(III)) or arsenate (As(V)), depending on the amount quantity of dissolved oxygen that is present in the environments oil. Some A few options available for the detection of arsenic include liquid chromatography coupled with fluorescence detection, as well as various field kits, one of which will involve a reaction between mercuric bromide and a reduced form of arsenic containing water. The latter option will yield a color output proportional to the concentration of arsenic present. Another option that is available are bacterial biosensors. Bacterial biosensors are whole cells that can be engineered with wild‐type gene induced promoters to detect environmental contaminants. The vector can be further engineered to yield either a fluorescence or a color output, as well as have different sensitivities for the detection of the environmental contaminants. The detection sensitivity can depend on the type of vector used, the efficiency of the ribosome binding site(s), promoter region, and the substrate binding site(s). In this work, we attempted to create a biosensor that had an altered ribosome binding efficiency to output blue coloration in the presence of arsenic ranging 0.05–100 μg/L in potable water and soil. In addition, we examined two established biosensors using beta‐galactosidase and green fluorescence protein as the reporters (kind gifts from Dr. Jan Roelof van der Meer). To investigate the utility of each construct, we transformed DH5‐alpha and XL10‐gold bacteria with each construct and incubated the culture in a variety of time of incubations in several arsenic concentrations. We collected and analyzed soil from areas surrounding Mission Bay San Diego and Black Mountain San Diego, each reported to pose high levels of arsenic. Most sites were near detection limits; however, an increased presence of arsenic was determined for the Black Mountain site. This work shows the potential for biosensors and the ability for inexpensive field analysis of toxic compounds Support or Funding Information This research was supported in part by an NSF REU grant (CHE‐‐1460645; PI Talley).