Imperial College London
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DrLeonBarron

Faculty of Medicine, School of Public Health

Reader in Analytical & Environmental Sciences
 
 
 
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Contact

 

leon.barron

 
 
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Location

 

Norfolk PlaceSt Mary's Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Alsaleh:2021:10.1039/d0ay01732a,
author = {Alsaleh, SA and Barron, L and Sturzenbaum, S},
doi = {10.1039/d0ay01732a},
journal = {Analytical Methods: advancing methods and applications},
pages = {327--336},
title = {Perchlorate detection via an invertebrate biosensor},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/d0ay01732a},
volume = {13},
year = {2021}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are constructed from easily obtainable ingredients that are often unregulated and difficult to trace. Salts of the oxyhalide perchlorate are frequently used as oxidisers in IEDs and in commercially available munitions, thus a reliable detection is needed to aid forensic investigations and the tracing of environmental ground or surface water contamination. We introduce the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as a biosensor for the presence of perchlorate, a promising alternative to the costly, technically challenging and time-consuming current perchlorate detection methods. Perchlorate uptake dynamics in C. elegans were first validated using ion exchange chromatography followed by assessing the effects of perchlorate on key life-point indices to verify the suitability of the nematodes as a forensic biosensor. Whole genome microarrays and qPCR analyses established that a set of immune and stress response genes were enriched during perchlorate exposure. A nematode strain (agIs219) containing an integrated copy of the significantly overexpressed t24b8.5 gene promoter followed by a GFP reporter gene was shown to fluoresce in a perchlorate dose dependent manner with a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.5 mg mL−1. Whilst chemicals commonly used in the construction of IEDs did not induce fluorescence, exposure to other oxyhalides did, highlighting the presence of possible shared stress response pathways. Burnt wire sparklers containing potassium perchlorate elicited fluorescence while other non-perchlorate containing post-blast explosion matrices did not. This demonstrates how C. elegans can be used to screen for perchlorate at environmental hotspots, an optimization, possibly with other target transgenes, is required to enable the detection of perchlorate at concentrations below 0.5 mg mL−1.
AU  - Alsaleh,SA
AU  - Barron,L
AU  - Sturzenbaum,S
DO  - 10.1039/d0ay01732a
EP  - 336
PY  - 2021///
SN  - 1759-9660
SP  - 327
TI  - Perchlorate detection via an invertebrate biosensor
T2  - Analytical Methods: advancing methods and applications
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/d0ay01732a
UR  - http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000612834000005&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
UR  - https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/AY/D0AY01732A#!divAbstract
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/87621
VL  - 13
ER  -
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