Employing Surface‐Displayed Proteins on Bacillus megabacterium Spores to Detect Environmental Pollutants

• DOI: 10.1096/fasebj.31.1_supplement.lb125
• Publication Date: 2023-11-26T17:36:45Z
• Authors: Daniel Toner Wynn; Rhiya Mittal; Leslie Knecht; Sapna Deo; Sylvia Daunert
• Keywords: Bacillus anthracis; Bacillus megaterium; Hazardous air pollutants

Arsenic poses a major threat to both human populations and the environment. It is carcinogenic potent toxin. Because of its hydrophilicity, dangerous levels arsenic can be found in drinking water many communities, especially areas where collected from wells. As such, developing methods quickly reliably assess wide variety matrices for presence very important. The current gold standard detection inductively‐coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry (ICP‐MS). Due limitations ICP‐MS, chiefly expense inconvenience, other have been developed, including biosensors. We developed novel biosensor that employs morphology bacterial endospores create spores engineered analytical tools (SEATs). In these biosensors, sensing reporting elements are displayed on surface Bacillus megaterium spores. This was accomplished by creating triple fusion protein joins spore coat CotB, arsenite binding ArsR, fluorescent reporter EGFP N‐terminus C‐terminus, respectively. SEATs greater sensitivity than traditional cell based with limits 1 × 10‐11 M. also demonstrated suitable use complex using spiked samples local contamination. Support or Funding Information Funded National Science Foundation.