Rutgers University researchers have developed a method which transforms RNA into a novel biosensor which can detect distinct chemicals relevant to human health.
The work, published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, implements RNA within bacterial cells allowing these cells, and their daughter cells, to accurately detect distinct chemicals such as the inorganic chemicals critical to countless physiological processes.
"We used our chemistry knowledge and turned RNA into a detector for physiologically important and short-lived inorganic chemicals, such as hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen peroxide," said Enver Cagri Izgu, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology in the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences. "The inorganic chemical we want to detect first reacts with a small receptor molecule, which in turn becomes a binder of a special RNA sequence."
"The subsequent binding event between the receptor product—a hydroxybenzylidene imidazolinone derivative—and the RNA generates light at a specific wavelength. We achieved this chemical sensing mechanism inside living Escherichia coli as the model organism."
During the most critical stages of many neurological, cardiovascular, and cancer related diseases, human cells will produce variable amounts of hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen peroxide. During their research, Izgu and his colleagues successfully detected these chemicals using their novel E. coli sensors in the lab. In the future, the team hopes to transform and use a human cell to detect trace chemicals in a similar manner to their successful E. coli sensor.