Abstract
Anthropogenic activities have released various contaminants into soil that pose a serious threat to the ecosystem and human well-being. Compared to conventional analytical methodologies, microbial cell-based bioreporters are offering a flexible, rapid, and cost-effective strategy to assess the environmental risks. This review aims to summarize the recent progress in the application of bioreporters in soil contamination detection and provide insight into the challenges and current strategies. The biosensing principles and genetic circuit engineering are introduced. Developments of bioreporters to detect and quantify heavy metal and organic contaminants in soil are reviewed. Moreover, future opportunities of whole-cell bioreporters for soil contamination monitoring are discussed.
Highlights
Soil is a central ecosystem that sustains humans, plants, and animals
The detection and monitoring of soil contaminants are vital for the security of humans and other biota on earth (Lu et al, 2015)
This review summarized the current state of whole-cell bioreporter in soil contaminant monitoring
Summary
Soil is a central ecosystem that sustains humans, plants, and animals. the increasing industrial and agricultural activities have released various contaminants such as aromatic compounds and heavy metals into soil, which severely deteriorated soil health and sustainability (Bispo et al, 1999; Gu and Chang, 2001; Wu et al, 2018; Bae et al, 2020). The conventional techniques for soil contaminant analysis include gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS), atomic fluorescence spectroscopy (AFS), inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (Branyikova et al, 2020; Wang et al, 2020) These instrumental-based analyses enable soil contamination measurements with high sensitivity and accuracy. Based on the definition proposed by the National Research Council’s (NRC) committee and the ISO/TC 190 working group, bioavailability is a dynamic process that comprises multiple steps (NRC, 2003; IOS, 2008) It includes the environmental availability of contaminants in soil, the contaminant uptake by organisms, and accumulation and toxic effects of contaminants within organisms (Harmsen, 2007; Kim et al, 2015). Genetic logic circuits link the sensors and actuators and convert the bioreaction into a detectable signal proportional to the analyte concentration (Su et al, 2011; Jia et al, 2019)
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