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Innovative biological approaches for monitoring and improving water quality

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posted on 2024-07-11, 10:55 authored by Sanja Aracic, Sam Manna, Steve Petrovski, Jen Wood, Gulay Mann, Ashley E. Franks
Water quality is largely influenced by the abundance and diversity of indigenous microbes present within an aquatic environment. Physical, chemical and biological contaminants from anthropogenic activities can accumulate in aquatic systems causing detrimental ecological consequences. Approaches exploiting microbial processes are now being utilized for the detection, and removal or reduction of contaminants. Contaminants can be identified and quantified in situ using microbial whole-cell biosensors, negating the need for water samples to be tested off-site. Similarly, the innate biodegradative processes can be enhanced through manipulation of the composition and/or function of the indigenous microbial communities present within the contaminated environments. Biological contaminants, such as detrimental/pathogenic bacteria, can be specifically targeted and reduced in number using bacteriophages. This mini-review discusses the potential application of whole-cell microbial biosensors for the detection of contaminants, the exploitation of microbial biodegradative processes for environmental restoration and the manipulation of microbial communities using phages.

Funding

Synthetic Biology Derived Electroactive Whole Cell Microbial Biosensors

Australian Research Council

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ISSN

1664-302X

Journal title

Frontiers in Microbiology

Volume

6

Issue

JUL

Article number

article no. 826

Publisher

Frontiers Research Foundation

Copyright statement

Copyright © 2015 Aracic, Manna, Petrovski, Wiltshire, Mann and Franks. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Language

eng

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