An autonomous microbial sensor enables long-term detection of TNT explosive in natural soil

Autor: Erin A. Essington, Grace E. Vezeau, Daniel P. Cetnar, Emily Grandinette, Terrence H. Bell, Howard M. Salis
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2024
Předmět:
Zdroj: Nature Communications, Vol 15, Iss 1, Pp 1-12 (2024)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2041-1723
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54866-y
Popis: Abstract Microbes can be engineered to sense target chemicals for environmental and geospatial detection. However, when engineered microbes operate in real-world environments, it remains unclear how competition with natural microbes affect their performance over long time periods. Here, we engineer sensors and memory-storing genetic circuits inside the soil bacterium Bacillus subtilis to sense the TNT explosive and maintain a long-term response, using predictive models to design riboswitch sensors, tune transcription rates, and improve the genetic circuit’s dynamic range. We characterize the autonomous microbial sensor’s ability to detect TNT in a natural soil system, measuring single-cell and population-level behavior over a 28-day period. The autonomous microbial sensor activates its response by 14-fold when exposed to low TNT concentrations and maintains stable activation for over 21 days, exhibiting exponential decay dynamics at the population-level with a half-life of about 5 days. Overall, we show that autonomous microbial sensors can carry out long-term detection of an important chemical in natural soil with competitive growth dynamics serving as additional biocontainment.
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