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Handbook of Cell Biosensors pp 1–23Cite as

Systematic Design of a Quorum Sensing-Based Biosensor for the Detection of Metal Ions in Escherichia coli

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Abstract

With the recent industrial expansion, heavy metals and other pollutants have increasingly contaminated our living surroundings. The non-degradability of heavy metals may lead to accumulation in food chains, and the resulting toxicity could cause damage in organisms. Hence, detection techniques have gradually received attention. In this study, a quorum sensing (QS)-based amplifier is introduced to improve the detection performance of metal ion biosensing. The design utilizes diffusible signal molecules, which freely pass through the cell membrane into the environment to communicate with others. Bacteria cooperate via the cell-cell communication process, thereby displaying synchronous behavior, even if only a minority of the cells detect the metal ion. In order to facilitate the design, the ability of the engineered biosensor to detect metal ions is described in a steady-state model. The design can be constructed according to user-oriented specifications by selecting adequate components from corresponding libraries, with the help of a genetic algorithm (GA)-based design method. The experimental results validate enhanced efficiency and detection performance of the quorum sensing-based biosensor of metal ions.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electric Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

    Bor-Sen Chen

Authors
  1. Bor-Sen Chen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bor-Sen Chen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. UMR CNRS 6144 GEPEA, Université de Nantes, La Roche sur Yon, France

    Gerald Thouand

Section Editor information

  1. Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Shimshon Belkin

  2. Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College, London, UK

    Paul Freemont

Appendix

Appendix

The steady-state model of the metal ion biosensor without QS-based amplifier is as follows:

$$ \left\{\begin{array}{c}{x}_{GSS}=\frac{P_M\left({P}_{u,i},{P}_{l,i},{x}_S,{I}_M\right)}{d+{r}_G}\\ {}{G}_{ss}=\frac{m}{d+r}{x}_G\qquad \end{array}\right. $$
(15)

where xGSS and Gss are the steady-state concentrations of immature and mature reporter proteins, respectively.

Component Libraries

Table 1 Metal ion-induced promoter-RBS component library in E. coli strain DH5α
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Table 2 Constitutive promoter-RBS component library in E. coli strain DH5α
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Table 3 QS-dependent promoter-RBS component library in E. coli strain DH5α
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Chen, BS. (2019). Systematic Design of a Quorum Sensing-Based Biosensor for the Detection of Metal Ions in Escherichia coli. In: Thouand, G. (eds) Handbook of Cell Biosensors. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47405-2_120-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47405-2_120-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47405-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47405-2

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