A dog’s powerful nose is famous for its ability to sniff out everything from disease to explosives, but science is rapidly catching up with its own range of artificial noses. Now, in the latest breakthrough in this exciting field, researchers have used genetically modified E. coli to spin conductive nanowires that can detect odor molecules produced by kidney disease. Additionally, they say their microbial manufacturing plant can be adjusted to create other wires to pick up even more medical conditions.
Humans are far from our canine companions when it comes to sensing the world around us through our noses. Over time, we have created a dizzying number of artificial odor sensors. Artificial noses can detect cancer in blood and urine samples, detect Parkinson’s disease in skin odors, detect bacteria in water, and find people buried under the rubble of natural disasters. I’ve seen them sniff out dangerous toxins. air.
According to researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMA), the problem with many of the nanowires used in these sensors is that they are made of toxic, non-biodegradable materials such as silicon and carbon fiber. To tackle this problem, the research team turned to bacterial solutions.
Last year, UMA microbiologist Derek Lovley and electrical and computer engineer Jun Yao used a bacterium called Geobacter sulphurreducens to create a wearable biofilm that generates electricity from sweat. The success of that experiment centered on the bacteria’s ability to grow tiny wires that can actually conduct electricity.
However, G. sulphurreducens is difficult to culture as it requires very specific conditions to reproduce. So the team enlisted the help of much more hardy bacteria.
“What we’ve done is take a ‘nanowire gene’ called pyrin from G. sulfareducens and splice it into the DNA of E. coli, one of the most widespread bacteria in the world.”
In addition to getting E. coli to start producing nanowires, Lovely and Yao also made an additional genetic modification, coating these wires with a peptide known as DLESFL. This made Wyer 100 times more sensitive to ammonia, a by-product in the exhaled breath of kidney patients, than he had been before. The biowire was then embedded in a sensor that was more effective at finding ammonia than previous sensors made from conventional materials.
“One of the most exciting things about this line of research is that it pushes electrical engineering in a fundamentally new direction,” says Yao. “Instead of wires made from scarce raw materials that do not biodegrade, the advantage of these protein nanowires is that they are stable, versatile, low-impact and cost-effective using the genetic engineering of life. We are able to build a platform with a high level of
The researchers say that tiny bacterial factories could be made to produce wires coated with various peptides that could detect other disease chemical manufacturers.
“It is possible to design unique peptides, each of which binds specifically to the molecule of interest.” So, as tracer molecules are identified that are released from the body and specific to particular diseases, there are hundreds of different We can create sensors that incorporate nanowires that sniff chemicals to monitor all kinds of health conditions.”
A study was published in a journal biosensors and bioelectronics.
Source: University of Massachusetts Amherst
