Team:Utrecht/Results

DeTaXion is a bacterial-based sensor for the detection of pharmaceutical contaminants in surface water. In its final form, DeTaXion will consist of a series of bacteria that can detect a wide variety of compounds. This will be achieved by engineering the chemotaxis pathway of Escherichia coli to emit a visible light signal in response to different pharmaceutical compounds. The project consists of three main aims: Aim 1: Explore the possibility of using the ligand binding domains from different transmembrane receptors. Aim 2: Development of a Bioluminescence Resonance Energy Transfer (BRET) readout for the activity of the chemotaxis pathway. Aim 3: Adjusting the dynamic range of the chemotaxis system to enable detection of a broad range of contaminant concentrations. Below we describe the results in each of these aims, including a description of the successful use of our submitted parts BBa_K2736101 and BBa_K2736105.