Journal
APPLIED MICROBIOLOGY AND BIOTECHNOLOGY
Volume 98, Issue 5, Pages 2267-2277Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s00253-013-5176-3
Keywords
Reporter bacteria; Antibiotics; Environmental monitoring; OmpF; Efflux system; Antibiotic resistance
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Funding
- Minerva Center for Bio-hybrid Complex Systems
- Korean National Research Foundation
- EU FP7 project Biomonar
- Alan Brown Memorial Endowment Fund
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The occurrence of pharmaceuticals, including antibacterial compounds, in the environment has been acknowledged as an emerging and troubling issue in environmental safety; their usage is constantly on the rise, and their effects on the environment are only partially understood. Such compounds can accumulate, contaminate the ecosystem, and contribute to the spreading of antibiotic resistance among bacteria, hindering human health. Bioluminescent Escherichia coli reporter strains, engineered to detect antibiotic compounds by fusing the promoter of the global regulator soxS to the Photorhabdus luminescens luxCDABE cassette, were further modified by altering their membrane permeability and efflux capabilities. This was accomplished by introducing several mutations in the efflux system (Delta emrE, Delta acrB, and Delta tolC) and by overexpressing OmpF, a porin located in the outer membrane that allows passive diffusion of molecules. Combinations of these alterations had a cumulative effect in lowering the detection threshold of several antibiotics, in some of the cases to concentrations reported from pharmaceutical-polluted environments.
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