Cornell scientists have engineered E. coli to act as a sensitive biosensor for monitoring environmental arsenic, a toxic pollutant most notably found in rice paddies in Southeast Asia.
A new study provides a proof of principle for a potentially cheap living sensor that can record even transient arsenic exposure under anaerobic conditions, preserve this information in the genome and allow delayed readout later in the open air of the lab.
The ability to detect and record arsenic exposures under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions has been a challenge for other types of arsenic biosensors.
At the same time, the mechanism within this sensor has the potential for use in other bacteria species and to detect other toxins.
“We’ve created what is called a whole cell biosensor, living machinery that tells us, if you let it grow…