Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Silesia, 40-032 Katowice, Poland.
Chemosphere. 2010 Oct;81(6):767-72. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2010.07.011. Epub 2010 Aug 6.
We describe an automatic biodetector for continuous monitoring of water toxicity (ABTOW). Construction of the ABTOW is based on natural ability of the biofilm formation to immobilize consortia of nitrifying bacteria (the sensing element) on the open cellular polyurethane foam as the support. Change of rates of oxygen consumption is used as an indicator of biocatalytic activity (nitrification) of the bacteria in response to xenobiotics. Owing to this design the ABTOW features stability long-term use, is inexpensive and simple in operation. The dynamics of ABTOW response is studied in details for phenol and cyanide as model toxins. These data indicate that the sensitivity was 3.5 μM for phenol and 0.19 μM for cyanide, respectively. The magnitudes of toxic effect were proportional to concentration whereas kinetics of the response is an indicator for the mechanism of toxicity. Similar methodology is applied to quantify toxicity of a range of heavy metals, herbicides and oxidative chain inhibitors. One may conclude that the presented biodetector provides a good sensitivity for continuous on-line monitoring of toxicity in water.
我们描述了一种用于连续监测水毒性的自动生物探测器 (ABTOW)。ABTOW 的构建基于生物膜形成的自然能力，将硝化细菌的共生体（传感元件）固定在开放式多孔聚氨酯泡沫上作为支撑。耗氧量的变化被用作指示细菌对异源生物的生物催化活性（硝化）的指标。由于这种设计，ABTOW 具有稳定性、长期使用性、低成本和操作简单等特点。我们详细研究了 ABTOW 对苯酚和氰化物这两种模型毒素的响应动力学。这些数据表明，ABTOW 对苯酚的灵敏度为 3.5 μM，对氰化物的灵敏度为 0.19 μM。毒性效应的大小与浓度成正比，而响应动力学则是毒性机制的指标。类似的方法也被应用于量化一系列重金属、除草剂和氧化链抑制剂的毒性。可以得出结论，所提出的生物探测器为水中毒性的连续在线监测提供了良好的灵敏度。
