Table of Contents

ABSTRACT

Water pollutants are toxic to all forms of life. Although water pollution is a global concern, some parts of the world are more severely affected. Acute toxicity symptoms in humans have been linked to the consumption of contaminated drinking water and food. Water pollutants exposure can cause several carcinogenic (tumors of the skin, lung, urinary bladder and other organs) and non-carcinogenic (gastrointestinal disturbances, skin lesions, peripheral vascular diseases, reproductive toxicity and neurological disorders) effects in humans. Water pollution also has economic consequences through increased healthcare costs, loss of agricultural productivity, a deterioration of natural resources (water and soil) leading to increased cost for their rehabilitation, and trade barriers that may prevent the export of food products. The increasing awareness of the environmental problems caused by water pollutants has created a demand for progressively more sophisticated detection methods. In response, many chemical and physical methodologies were developed. The resulting techniques were – powerful, accurate and sensitive but, they are also costly and require specialized laboratories. Besides they fail to provide data as to the bioavailability of a pollutant, its effects on living systems or its potential synergistic/antagonistic behavior in mixtures. Microbial sensors can provide rapid measurement without labor-intensive and time-consuming sample preparation and apparently allow for a promising way to assess the biologically available water pollutants in the environment.

Keywords: whole cell biosensors, luminescence, fluorescence, transcriptional activator