• Electrochemical biosensing
• biomarkers
• cancer diagnostics
• electrode design
• microfluidics
• oncology
• point-of-care testing

• Humans
• Biosensing Techniques/methods
• Neoplasms/diagnosis
• Electrochemical Techniques/methods
• Biomarkers, Tumor/analysis
• Medical Oncology/methods

• biosensors
• computational techniques
• engineering strategies
• historical overview
• inducible systems
• prokaryotes
• transcription factor

• Biosensing Techniques/methods
• Transcription Factors/metabolism
• Transcription Factors/genetics
• Synthetic Biology/methods
• History, 20th Century
• Protein Engineering/methods
• DNA/genetics

• Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek

• LysR-type transcriptional regulators
• biosensors
• genetic circuitry
• prokaryotes
• synthetic biology
• transcription factors

• Transcription Factors/metabolism
• Transcription Factors/genetics
• Bacterial Proteins/genetics
• Bacterial Proteins/metabolism
• Biosensing Techniques/methods
• Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial
• Transcription, Genetic

• Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek

• Contaminated sites
• Genotoxicity
• N-alkane
• Remediation strategy
• Soil-groundwater system

• Humans
• Benzene/analysis
• Water Pollutants, Chemical/analysis
• Ecosystem
• Biodegradation, Environmental
• Groundwater/chemistry
• Hydrocarbons
• Alkanes/analysis
• Petroleum/analysis
• Risk Assessment
• Soil
• Soil Pollutants/analysis

• Bacterial whole-cell biosensor
• Bioavailability
• Mercury
• Methylation
• Methylmercury
• Microbial transformation

• Humans
• Mercury/analysis
• Methylmercury Compounds/analysis
• Ecosystem
• Geologic Sediments/chemistry
• Water Pollutants, Chemical/analysis
• Bacteria
• Water/analysis
• Biosensing Techniques

Microorganisms are omnipresent and inseparable from our life. Many of them are beneficial to humans, while some are not. Importantly, foods and beverages are susceptible to microbial contamination, with their toxins causing illnesses and even death in some cases. Therefore, monitoring and detecting harmful microorganisms are critical to ensuring human health and safety. For several decades, many methods have been developed to detect and monitor microorganisms and their toxicants. Conventionally, nucleic acid analysis and antibody-based analysis were used to detect pathogens. Additionally, diverse chromatographic methods were employed to detect toxins based on their chemical and structural properties. However, conventional techniques have several disadvantages concerning analysis time, sensitivity, and expense. With the advances in biotechnology, new approaches to detect pathogens and toxins have been reported to compensate for the disadvantages of conventional analysis from different research fields, including electrochemistry, nanotechnology, and molecular biology. Among them, we focused on the recent studies of transcription factor (TF)-based biosensors to detect microorganisms and discuss their perspectives and applications. Additionally, the other biosensors for detecting microorganisms reported in recent studies were also introduced in this review.

• bacterial cells
• compact acoustical analyzer
• express analysis of antibiotics
• light phase-contrast microscopy
• microbiological analysis
• resonator with lateral electric field

• Acoustics
• Anti-Bacterial Agents
• Biosensing Techniques/methods
• Electric Impedance
• Reproducibility of Results

• 22-29-00587 Russian Science Foundation Project

• Biosensors
• Phosphoproteins
• Phosphoproteomics
• Post-translational modifications,

• Stimuli Responsive Polymers

• Advances oxidation processes (AOPs)
• Biodegradation
• Chlorogenic acid
• Diclofenac
• Microbial biosensors
• Wastewaters

• Chlorogenic Acid
• Diclofenac
• Escherichia coli
• Humans
• Hydrogen Peroxide
• Water Pollutants, Chemical/analysis

• Bacterial cell-based sensors
• Chemosensors
• Electrochemical-based sensors
• Heavy metal sensors
• Metalloregulators
• Split-protein systems

All biosensing platforms rest on two pillars: specific biochemical recognition of a particular analyte and transduction of that recognition into a readily detectable signal. Most existing biosensing technologies utilize proteins that passively bind to their analytes and therefore require wasteful washing steps, specialized reagents, and expensive instruments for detection. To overcome these limitations, protein engineering strategies have been applied to develop new classes of protein-based sensor/actuators, known as protein switches, responding to small molecules. Protein switches change their active state (output) in response to a binding event or physical signal (input) and therefore show a tremendous potential to work as a biosensor. Synthetic protein switches can be created by the fusion between two genes, one coding for a sensor protein (input domain) and the other coding for an actuator protein (output domain) by domain insertion. The binding of a signal molecule to the engineered protein will switch the protein function from an “off” to an “on” state (or vice versa) as desired. The molecular switch could, for example, sense the presence of a metabolite, pollutant, or a biomarker and trigger a cellular response. The potential sensing and response capabilities are enormous; however, the recognition repertoire of natural switches is limited. Thereby, bioengineers have been struggling to expand the toolkit of molecular switches recognition repertoire utilizing periplasmic binding proteins (PBPs) as protein-sensing components. PBPs are a superfamily of bacterial proteins that provide interesting features to engineer biosensors, for instance, immense ligand-binding diversity and high affinity, and undergo large conformational changes in response to ligand binding. The development of these protein switches has yielded insights into the design of protein-based biosensors, particularly in the area of allosteric domain fusions. Here, recent protein engineering approaches for expanding the versatility of protein switches are reviewed, with an emphasis on studies that used PBPs to generate novel switches through protein domain insertion.

• CMV enhancer
• Huh7 cell line
• Luciferase assay
• Toxicity
• Whole cell biosensor

Nanobiosensors (NBSs) are a class of chemical sensors which are sensitive to a physical or chemical stimulus (heat, acidity, metabolism transformations) that conveys information about vital processes. NBSs detect physiological signals and convert them into standardized signals, often electrical, to be quantified from analog to digital. NBSs are classified according to the transducer element (electrochemical, piezoelectric, optical, and thermal) in accordance with biorecognition principle (enzyme recognition, affinity immunoassay, whole sensors, DNA). NBSs have varied forms, depending on the degree of interpretation of natural processes in plants. Plant nanobionics uses mathematical models based on qualitative and less quantitative records. NBSs can give information about endogenous concentrations or endogenous fluxes of signaling molecules (phytohormones). The properties of NBSs are temporal and spatial resolution, the ability of being used without significantly interfering with the system. NBSs with the best properties are the optically genetically coded NBSs, but each NBS needs specific development efforts. NBS technologies using antibodies as a recognition domain are generic and tend to be more invasive, and there are examples of their use in plant nanobionics. Through opportunities that develop along with technologies, we hope that more and more NBSs will become available for plant nanobionics. The main advantages of NBSs are short analysis time, low-cost tests and portability, real-time measurements, and remote control.

• Bioelectricity
• Bioelectrochemical systems
• Electrolyte
• Rheology
• Sedimentation rate

• Agar
• Bioelectric Energy Sources
• Biological Oxygen Demand Analysis
• Electrolytes
• Rheology

• Diclofenac
• Fluorescent protein
• Genetically engineered whole-cell biosensor
• Microfluidic device
• PDMS microchannel
• Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeast)

The ability of bacteria to sense specific molecules within their environment and trigger metabolic responses in accordance is an invaluable biotechnological resource. While many transcription factors (TFs) mediating such processes have been studied, only a handful have been leveraged for molecular biology applications. To expand the repertoire of biotechnologically relevant sensors we present a strategy for the construction and testing of chimeric TF libraries, based on the fusion of highly soluble periplasmic binding proteins (PBPs) with DNA-binding domains (DBDs). We validate this concept by constructing and functionally testing two unique sense-and-respond regulators for benzoate, an environmentally and industrially relevant metabolite. This work will enable the development of tailored biosensors for novel synthetic regulatory circuits.

Bacterially encoded environmental sensor proteins are potentially a rich source of transcriptional control but only a few have been harnessed for biotechnological applications. Here the authors develop a general strategy for designing custom-made monogenic synthetic sensors and validate the approach by designing two sense-and-respond regulators for benzoate.

• Biological Assay/methods
• China
• Environmental Monitoring
• Mercury/analysis
• Organisms, Genetically Modified
• Phenanthrenes
• Rivers
• Soil
• Soil Pollutants/analysis

• Biosensor
• Spectroscopy
• Water contamination
• Water monitoring
• Water quality

• Bioluminescent cyanobacterial bioassay
• Environmental monitoring
• Freeze-drying
• Microplate long-term bioassay

• Aliivibrio fischeri/drug effects
• Biological Assay/methods
• Cyanobacteria/chemistry
• Cyanobacteria/drug effects
• Environmental Monitoring/methods
• Freeze Drying
• Fresh Water
• Photobacterium/drug effects

• alginate−methacrylate
• bioencapsulation
• electrostatic extrusion
• microbead
• quorum sensing
• whole cell biosensor

• 4-Butyrolactone
• Alginic Acid/chemistry
• Bacteria
• Bacterial Proteins
• Escherichia coli
• Microspheres
• Pseudomonas aeruginosa
• Quorum Sensing

• Bacterial endospores
• Biosensor
• Field assay
• Pollution

Addressing the problems related to the widespread presence of an increasing number of chemicals released into the environment by human activities represents one of the most important challenges of this century. In the last few years, to replace the high cost, in terms of time and money, of conventional technologies, the scientific community has directed considerable research towards the development both of new detection systems for the measurement of the contamination levels of chemicals in people’s body fluids and tissue, as well as in the environment, and of new remediation strategies for the removal of such chemicals from the environment, as a means of the prevention of human diseases. New emerging biosensors for the analysis of environmental chemicals have been proposed, including VHH antibodies, that combine the antibody performance with the affinity for small molecules, genetically engineered microorganisms, aptamers and new highly stable enzymes. However, the advances in the field of chemicals monitoring are still far from producing a continuous real-time and on-line system for their detection. Better results have been obtained in the development of strategies which use organisms (microorganisms, plants and animals) or metabolic pathway-based approaches (single enzymes or more complex enzymatic solutions) for the fixation, degradation and detoxification of chemicals in the environment. Systems for enzymatic detoxification and degradation of toxic agents in wastewater from chemical and manufacturing industries, such as ligninolytic enzymes for the treatment of wastewater from the textile industry, have been proposed. Considering the high value of these research studies, in terms of the protection of human health and of the ecosystem, science must play a major role in guiding policy changes in this field.

• Biosensors
• Biomonitoring
• Bioremediation
• Toxic compounds
• Chemicals pollution
• Human health
• Environmental pollutants

• Bioluminescence
• Biosensor
• E-cigarette
• E-juice
• Toxicity
• lux

• Aerosols/chemistry
• Bacteria/drug effects
• Bacteria/genetics
• Bacterial Proteins/genetics
• Biosensing Techniques
• DNA Damage/drug effects
• DNA, Recombinant/chemistry
• DNA, Recombinant/genetics
• Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems/adverse effects
• Humans
• Oxidoreductases/genetics
• Rec A Recombinases/genetics

• Cell wall antibiotic
• Expression system
• Inducible promoter
• Signal transduction
• Two-component system
• Whole-cell biosensor