IDBR: Type A: Development of a yeast-based continuous culture system for detecting bioavailable phosphate

美国圣母大学（University of Notre Dame）获得了一项奖项，该奖项旨在开发一种可远程部署的基于酵母的生物传感器，用于测量水中生物可利用磷酸盐的含量。富营养化，即由于营养过剩而污染地表水供应，可导致有害的藻华和全球地表水质量的退化。因此，该项目的更广泛影响包括帮助减少供水中营养过剩，保护环境、饮用水和财产价值，优化肥料使用（降低农业成本和节约有限的磷酸盐资源）。教育和外联工作将包括开发一种简化的基于批量培养的测定方法，供学校和社区使用，这将扩大环境参与和对减少磷酸盐废物必要性的认识。此外，参与项目的分析化学和生态学学生将分别接受其他领域的跨学科培训。改进测量磷酸盐的技术是很重要的，因为富营养化（通过过量的营养物质造成的污染）正在降低全球地表水的质量，而磷酸盐的监测在很大程度上仍然局限于费力的实验室湿化学方法。该项目的目标是通过开发一种基于生物的磷酸盐传感器来解决这个问题，这种传感器是连续的，相对便宜的，可远程部署的，能够测试浑浊水，并且基于监测酵母的生长。该装置背后的原理是，所有生物（包括酵母）都需要磷酸盐来生长；酵母是这项工作的理想生物，原因包括它们对环境扰动的稳健性和对水传播病毒的抗性。由于在相关磷酸盐浓度范围内，酵母的生长与磷酸盐浓度呈线性关系，因此在测试水为唯一磷酸盐来源的条件下，通过监测该连续培养系统中酵母的生长和呼吸，可以测量水中生物可利用磷酸盐量的变化。由于该传感器将测量生物可利用磷酸盐，而不是像其他标准方法那样简单地测量溶解活性磷酸盐（DRP）或总磷（TP），因此它将成为涉及淡水的任何环境或工程研究的重要新工具，并应提供对水生系统中营养动力学以前无法获得的方面的见解。

An award is made to The University of Notre Dame to develop a remotely deployable yeast based biosensor that measures the amount of bioavailable phosphate in water. Eutrophication, pollution of surface water supplies through excess nutrients, can result in harmful algal blooms and the degradation of the quality of surface waters throughout the globe. Thus, the Broader Impacts of the project include helping to reduce the over abundance of nutrients in water supplies, protecting the environment, drinking water, and property values, and optimizing fertilizer use (reducing farming costs and conserving the limited resource phosphate). The education and outreach efforts will include development of a simplified batch-culture-based assay for use in schools and community settings, which will broaden environmental participation and awareness of the need to reduce phosphate waste. In addition, the analytical chemistry and ecology students involved in the project will each receive cross-disciplinary training in the other field.Improving the technology for measuring phosphate is important because eutrophication (pollution through excess nutrients) is degrading the quality of surface waters throughout the globe, and monitoring of phosphate is largely still limited to laborious lab-based, wet chemistry approaches. The goal of the project is to address this problem by developing a biologically-based phosphate sensor that is continuous, relatively inexpensive, remotely deployable, able to test turbid water, and based on monitoring the growth of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The principle behind the device is that all organisms (including yeast) need phosphate to grow; yeast are ideal organisms for this work for reasons including their robustness to environmental perturbation and resistance to water-borne viruses. Since yeast growth is linear with phosphate concentration in the relevant phosphate concentration range, changes in the amount of bioavailable phosphate in water will be measured by monitoring the growth and respiration of yeast in this continuous culture system under conditions where the test water is the only source of phosphate. Because this sensor will measure bioavailable phosphate, not simply dissolved reactive phosphate (DRP) or total phosphorous (TP) as measured by other standard approaches, it will represent an important new tool for any environmental or engineering studies involving freshwater and should provide insight into previously inaccessible aspects of nutrient dynamics in aquatic systems.