Development and application of real time biosensors

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Biosensors are devices of biological origin that can detect the presence of chemicals or other physical factors (e.g. light, temperature) in the environment. We are proposing to develop a whole new group of chemical biosensors, in particluar for sugars and simple ions like zinc, manganese and phosphate. These biosensors are examples of nanotechnology because they can sense chemicals at the atomic to cellular level. The particular biosensors we are proposing to develop are based on simple proteins called solute binding proteins. These proteins can be fused to two other proteins (CFP and YFP) to generate a fluorescent signal when they bind a specific chemical, which in this case will be a sugar or an ion. These nanosensors can be incorporated into living cells where they will report in real time on the concentration of the chemical they can sense. This is very important because it means changes in concentrations (flux) of chemicals can be measured. Many signalling mechanisms in biology depend on changes in the concentrations of metabolites so being able to sense these changes is crucial to many fundamental studies on biological action.