Bioluminescence Based Bacterial-electronic System to Monitor Pathological Biomarkers in Urine

One of the main goals of synthetic biology research is to develop novel and robust genetic networks for improving the performance of bacterial biosensors. Whole-cell bacterial biosensors have several advantages for the detection of biological substances and have proven to be useful analytical tools. However, several hurdles have limited whole-cell biosensor applications in the clinic, primarily their unreliable operation in complex media and low signal-to-noise ratio. In this work, we use the complex genetic structure of the bacterial bioluminescence ( luxCDABE cassette) and bacterial cell-to-cell communications to build smart biosensors that can detect multiple inputs, process the cellular information and report the robust signal based on computation results. Also, we present a micro-bio-electronic device based on biosensor bacteria and miniaturized luminescence readout for biomolecular detection of clinically relevant biomarkers ( heme, glucose, NOx) in human urine.