Gold-Specific Biosensor for Monitoring Wastewater Using Genetically Engineered Cupriavidus metallidurans CH34

Transcription factor-based whole-cell biosensors have recently become promising alternatives to conventional analytical methods due to their advantage of simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and environmental friendliness. In this study, we used genetic engineering to develop a whole-cell biosensor based on the activation of promoters by CupR via interactions with gold ions, leading to the expression of reporter genes that yield output signals. Altering the promoter sequences was shown to significantly improve the performance of the biosensor strain in terms of gold-specificity. The detection sensitivity of our engineered strains was 42-fold higher than that of wild-type strains. The linear range of the purposed sensor was 125–1000 nM with a limit of detection at 46.5 nM. The effectiveness of the sensor strain was verified in wastewater samples.