Development of Detection Methods for Monitoring of Genetically Engineered Microorganisms Released into Environment

Abstract

Application of genetically engineered microorganisms (GEMs) to solve many kinds of environmental pollution problems such as removing environmental hazardous contaminants has been studied. Before releasing GEMs into environment, the behavior of these newly developed microorganisms must be checked sufficiently. The fundamental checking points for GEMs are their survival and propagative possibilities in the environment and their capability of transferring or mobilizing their genetically engineered genes. In this study, the authors investigated and developed highly sensitive methodology for monitoring the GEMs' genes, to establish the effective analytical methods for the GEMs' behavior in water pollution control systems. DNA polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method was adopted to amplify the detecting sensitivity against target genes of GEMs. Nucleic acids hybridization technology is usually used to detect specific genes or DNA segments. In this study, the combined methodology of PCR amplification of target DNA and detection by nucleic acid hybridization with specific DNA probes was developed. The other important factor of the detection is recovering target genes or DNAs from environmental samples. Therefore, we also established the recovering methods of GEMs' nucleic acids from water or soil to which GEMs were released.