Evaluation of a GFP reporter gene construct for environmental arsenic detection

Detection of arsenic and other heavy metal contaminants in the environment is critical to ensuring safe drinking water and effective cleanup of historic activities that have led to widespread contamination of soil and groundwater. Biosensors have the potential to significantly reduce the costs associated with site characterization and long term environmental monitoring. By exploiting the highly selective and sensitive natural mechanisms by which bacteria and other living organisms respond to heavy metals, and fusing transcriptionally active components of these mechanisms to reporter genes, such as beta-galactosidase, bacterial luciferase (lux), or green fluorescent protein (GFP) from marine jellyfish, it is possible to produce inexpensive, yet effective biosensors. This article describes the response to submicrogram quantities of arsenite and arsenate of a whole cell arsenic biosensor utilizing a GFP reporter gene.