LUMINESCENT BIOMONITORING OF BENZENE-DERIVATIVES IN THE ENVIRONMENT USING RECOMBINANT ESCHERICHIA-COLI

For the protection of the deterioration of the environment, pollutants should be reduced as much as possible. Therefore, a sensitive detecti on method of environmental pollutants is required. TOL plasmid respons ible for the degradation of benzene and its derivatives is fused with the gene of firefly luciferase to breed a luminescent bacteria which c an be applied to the environmental monitoring of these chemicals. Meas urement of the bacteria-generated photons by a photon-counting device is utilized to estimate quantitatively the concentrations of pollutant s. The luciferase is significantly induced in the bacteria, depending on the pollutant concentration. The lower detection limit is a few ppm for a benzene derivative, although the induction effect of each deriv ative is different. Biomonitoring, therefore, potentially offers a rap id and sensitive detection technique for environmental protection from industrial pollutants.