Approaches to bioresponse-linked instrumental analysis in water analysis

A new concept based on hyphenation of biotests, for biological selection, and chemical analysis is introduced for water analysis. Biomolecular recognition components such as receptors, enzymes, and nucleic acids integrated in biological reaction chains are used for binding and selective enrichment of known and unknown biologically active substances in water samples; this is followed by identification and quantitation. The coupling of biomolecular recognition and binding to chemical analysis can be achieved either in discrete analytical steps, e.g. binding and elution of bioactive ligands from affinity columns followed by chemical analysis, or by methods capable of monitoring the binding of the ligand and simultaneous verification of its identity. This analytical strategy, denoted bioresponse-linked instrumental analysis (BLIA), enables detection of potential biological effects and identification of the analyte causing these effects. Several examples are presented.