Dias A, Alvarez M, Gándola Y, Deisting A, Alba Posse E, Arnaldi H, Asorey H, Bertou X, Colque A, Favela-Pérez F, Gasulla J, Gómez Berisso M, Guerra-Pulido J O, Lipovetzky J, Lobera J, Lovino M B, Marpegan L, Martín D, Mejía Muñoz S, Monroe J, Nadra A D, Pregliasco R, Rumi G, Rossen A, Tallis M, Thompson A, Triana M, Vazquez Miranda M L
Department of Physics, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK.
Departamento de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Celular, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Instituto de Biociencias, Biotecnología y Biología Traslacional (iB3), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA), Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Commun Eng. 2025 Jan 7;4(1):2. doi: 10.1038/s44172-024-00337-7.
This paper reports the design of a biosensor for sensitive, low-cost measurement of lead in drinking water. The biosensor uses a genetically-modified strain of Escherichia coli, which serves as both signal amplifier and reporter of lead in water, measured via colour change. We developed the PlomBOX measurement platform to image this colour change and we demonstrate its capability to detect concentrations as low as the World Health Organisation upper limit for drinking water of 10 ppb. Our approach does not require expensive infrastructure or expert operators, and its automated sensing, detection and result visualisation platform is user-friendly and robust compared to existing lead biosensors-critical features to enable measurement by non-experts at the point of use.
本文报道了一种用于灵敏、低成本检测饮用水中铅含量的生物传感器的设计。该生物传感器使用了一种经过基因改造的大肠杆菌菌株,它既是信号放大器,又作为水中铅的报告器,通过颜色变化来测量。我们开发了PlomBOX测量平台来对这种颜色变化进行成像,并展示了其检测低至世界卫生组织规定的饮用水铅含量上限10 ppb的能力。我们的方法不需要昂贵的基础设施或专业操作人员,与现有的铅生物传感器相比,其自动化传感、检测和结果可视化平台对用户友好且性能稳健,这些关键特性使非专业人员能够在使用点进行测量。