TY - JOUR AB - Parasitic diseases affect millions of people worldwide, causing debilitating illnesses anddeath. Rapid and cost-effective approaches to detect parasites are needed, especially inresource-limited settings. A common signature of parasitic diseases is the release of specificproteases by the parasites at multiple stages during their life cycles. To this end, weengineered several modular Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis whole-cell-basedbiosensors which incorporate an interchangeable protease recognition motif into theirdesigns. Herein, we describe how several of our engineered biosensors have been applied todetect the presence and activity of elastase, an enzyme released by the cercarial larvae stageof Schistosoma mansoni. Collectively, S. mansoni and several other schistosomes areresponsible for the infection of an estimated 200 million people worldwide. Since ourbiosensors are maintained in lyophilised cells, they could be applied for the detection of S.mansoni and other parasites in settings without reliable cold chain access. AU - Webb,AJ AU - Kelwick,R AU - Doenhoff,MJ AU - Kylilis,N AU - MacDonald,J AU - Wen,KY AU - Mckeown,C AU - Baldwin,G AU - Ellis,T AU - Jensen,K AU - Freemont,PS DO - 10.1038/srep24725 PY - 2016/// SN - 2045-2322 TI - A protease-based biosensor for the detection of schistosome cercariae T2 - Scientific Reports UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep24725 UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/31012 VL - 6 ER -