A suite of recombinant luminescent bacterial strains for the quantification of bioavailable heavy metals and toxicity testing

Background  

Recombinant whole-cell sensors have already proven useful in the assessment of the bioavailability of environmental pollutants like heavy metals and organic compounds. In this work 19 recombinant bacterial strains representing various Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis) and Gram-negative (Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas fluorescens) bacteria were constructed to express the luminescence encoding genes luxCDABE (from Photorhabdus luminescens) as a response to bioavailable heavy metals ("lights-on" metal sensors containing metal-response elements, 13 strains) or in a constitutive manner ("lights-off" constructs, 6 strains).