Biosensors: from canaries to bacteria

Pollution in many forms is a major issue for a broad range of industries. Keeping

tabs on these harmful substances is becoming increasingly important as legislation

gets tougher and associated clean-up costs and penalties get higher. This is

where biosensors mean business.

authenticating raw materials or high value goods using biological marking systems.

With so many advantages, it is small wonder that the worldwide market in biosensors

has trebled in the past four years and is now worth some £1bn.

Internal workings

A typical biosensor consists of a biological component (e.g. an enzyme, antibody

or micro-organism) and an electronic device (the transducer) that converts the

biological signal into a measurable output.

The biological part of the sensor reacts with the substance of interest to

produce a physical or biochemical change, such as light or colour, that is detected

and converted to an electrical signal by the transducer. The amplifier increases

the intensity of the signal so that it can be readily measured. These components

are usually housed within a single portable unit that can be placed at fixed

strategic locations.

The biosensor display can be tailored to meet the needs of the application

and can range from a simple output such

as switching on or off a light-emitting diode to a quantitative result displayed

in graphical format.

Early warning

Biosensors have caught on in the water industry because they are simple to use,

cost much less than conventional systems and can act as a back-up to existing

chemical detection methods. In addition, biosensors produce results in minutes

rather than days and are not confined to detecting a small range of known contaminants.

They react to general toxicity and provide an all-important early warning of

possible pollution. With regular use, they can lead to significant improvements

in quality monitoring and provide an auditable track record of water quality.

Biosensors also cut analysis time down to a few minutes, compared to the days

needed to obtain results from a conventional laboratory test. They are simple

to use and are cost-effective, making them attractive to smaller companies.

Biosensors can offer significant benefits for screening large quantities of

samples, reducing the need to send every sample for laboratory analysis.

Already well established in the pharmaceutical and medical industries – where

glucose and pregnancy testing kits are the best known examples – biosensors

are now catching on in industries such as engineering, textiles, water, food,

drink and chemical production.

For nearly 30 years, it has been known that a bacterium, Vibrio fischeri, found

in marine environments emits visible light or ‘bioluminesces’. When V. fischeri

is in a state of metabolic health, the level of light emitted is high and under

increasing amounts

of metabolic stress, the amount of bioluminescence drops in a predictable and

reproducible manner.

This provides a powerful tool for rapidly identifying ‘hot spots’ of toxicity

and eliminating uncontaminated areas. The cost per sample of using bioluminescence

is approximately one tenth of conventional methods.

Using bioluminescence to determine the presence of toxins has been employed

in the pharmaceutical sector for several years to rapidly screen for acute toxicity

of lead compounds during the early stages of drug development. Increasingly,

the approach

is being adopted in the environment industry, mainly in the water treatment

sector, where it is used as a rapid, low cost direct toxicity assessment technique.

Xerox chose a biosensor system to monitor wastewater from a new production

process at its UK manufacturing plant in Mitcheldean, Gloucester-shire. The

company wanted a simple way to measure the COD of wastewater to meet consent

limits. The solution was a hand-held device that measures light from an enzyme-dependent,

chemi-luminescent reaction.

“Using conventional chemical methods, a result can take up to three days

to obtain,” says Chris Marriott, Health and Safety Officer for Xerox Environment,

“Using the biosensor, a result can be obtained within an hour. The results

are of sufficient accuracy to enable us to discharge our waste confident in

the knowledge that the consent is not being breached.”

Pollution control

Preventing pollution is not the only use biosensors can be put to as they can

also indicate when to reduce dosing and additives safely, leading to substantial

savings in material costs. For example, during paper manufacture, pulp is regularly

dosed with biocides to control the level of bacterial contamination.

With biosensors, the bacterial content is continually monitored and biocides

are added only as and when required. Not only does this reduce costs and pollution,

it also improves paper quality.

The technology can be applied in any industry where the microbiological integrity

of water or air has an impact on the end-product quality. Paint manufacturers

use similar systems where bacterial contamination could mean the loss of up

to three weeks’ production.

Toxicity detection

Whereas conventional chemical monitoring systems test for known contaminants,

biosensors are capable of detecting general toxicity in soil, water or air.

In the case of land contamination, Remedios has developed a system to produce

a computer-generated map summarising site problems.

The system was recently used by property consultant Chesterton International

to assess a Scottish site with a history of various industrial uses. High levels

of contaminants were present but the exact distribution of the pollution was

unknown. Using the biosensor, an assessment of the site was made in less than

ten working days and an area of toxicity overlooked by three previous reports

was discovered.

Chesterton International Director Eric Shearer said, “I had seen the commercial

value of the site years ago. Remedios, in just a few weeks, showed me the true

value of the site in a presentation that even I could understand.”

As well as assessing general toxicity, biosensors can home in on specific compounds,

using an antibody, enzyme or even DNA fragment to detect the presence of a target

substance. A further advantage of biosensors is their extraordinary sensitivity

and accuracy. They can match the sensitivity of the human palate in detecting

minute quantities of taste-altering contaminants, which explains their widespread

use in the water and food and drink industries.

An exciting development is the use of biological tracers (usually DNA) to pinpoint

the source of an effluent by marking it with a tag where it is being discharged.

As environmental legislation becomes more stringent, such tracer technology

will become increasingly widely used.

The same technology can be used to add identifying DNA markers during the manufacture

of high-value items, such as perfumes and designer clothes, to help detect counterfeit

items. Biosensors really do mean business and their range of applications set

to increase.