Due to increasing advances in physical and chemical techniques for the assessment of pollutants in the environment, there is an immediate demand for a bioassay that can report both the presence of an analyte and its biological effects. In accordance with this need, there has been a fast growth in whole-cell biosensor technology. | Turkish Journal of Biology Turk J Biol (2015) 39: 550-555 © TÜBİTAK doi: Research Article Designing a bacterial biosensor for detection of mercury in water solutions 1,2 3 4 5 Amir ROOINTAN , Nooshin SHABAB , Jamshid KARIMI , Alireza RAHMANI , 6 1,3, Mohammad Yousef ALIKHANI , Massoud SAIDIJAM * 1 Research Center for Molecular Medicine, School of Medicine, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran 2 Department of Medical Biotechnology, School of Advanced Medical Sciences and Technologies, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran 3 Department of Molecular Medicine and Genetics, School of Medicine, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran 4 Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition, School of Medicine, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran 5 Department of Environmental Health Engineering, Faculty of Health and Research Center for Health Sciences, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran 6 Department of Microbiology, School of Medicine, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran Received: Accepted/Published Online: Printed: Abstract: Due to increasing advances in physical and chemical techniques for the assessment of pollutants in the environment, there is an immediate demand for a bioassay that can report both the presence of an analyte and its biological effects. In accordance with this need, there has been a fast growth in whole-cell biosensor technology. In this study we aimed to design a whole-cell bacterial biosensor to detect mercury in liquid solutions. The Pseudomonas pBS228 merR gene and its related promoter/operator was synthesized by Bioneer. The green fluorescence protein (GFP) gene was used as a reporter. GFP was cloned downstream of the merR gene. The construct, including the merR promoter, gene, and GFP, was cloned in a pUC19 vector and transferred into E. coli BL21 (DE3) .
