• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.38-43
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• 2016

Novel and specific recognition elements are of central importance in the development of a pathogen detection method. Here, we describe a simple method for identifying the cell-wall binding domain (CBD) from a sequenced bacterial genome employing homology search for phage lysin genes. A putative CBD (CPF369_CBD) was identified from a genome of Clostridium perfringens type strain ATCC 13124, and its function was studied with the CBD-GFP fusion protein recombinantly expressed in Escherichia coli. Fluorescence microscopy showed the specific binding of the fusion protein to C. perfringens cells, which demonstrates the potential of this method for the identification of novel bioprobes for specific detection of pathogenic bacteria.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.373-377
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• 2003

Various groups of industrial and agricultural pollutants (heavy metal ions, cyanides, and pesticides) can be detected by enzymes. Since heavy metal ions inhibit urease, cyanides inhibit peroxidase, organophosphorus and carbamate pesticides inhibit butyrylcholinesterase, these enzymes were co-immobilized into a bovine serum albumin gel on the surface of an ion-sensitive field effect transistor to create a bioprobe that is sensitive to the compounds mentioned above. The sensitivity of the present sensor towards KCN corresponded to $1\;\mu\textrm{M}$ with 1 min of incubation time. The detection limits for Hg(II) ions and the pesticide carbofuran were 0.1 and $0.5\;\mu\textrm{M}$, respectively, when a 10 min sensor incubation time in contaminated samples was chosen. The total time for determining the concentrations of all species mentioned did not exceed 20 min.