Team:Edinburgh

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iGEM PROJECT "TNT/RDX DETECTOR AND BIOREMEDIATOR"

In 2007, 5 426 new casualties were recorded from landmine explosions. 71% of these casualties were civilians. A further 46% of the civilian casualties were children (Landmine monitor 2009). This made us realise the need for the production of a cheap, safe and accurate method that can be applied in a big scale to help detect landmines. A synthetic organism could be just what is needed.

Even though landmines are buried under soil, they normally leak indicating their imminent position with a chemical fingerprint. TNT-filled landmines produce three major source chemicals, namely 1,3-DNB, 2,4-DNT, and 2,4,6-TNT (Thomas F. Jenkins 2001). In addition, the natural degradation of explosive compounds, such as TNT, by bacterial enzymes produces nitrogen in the form of Nitrites (Christopher E. French 1998). Nitrites are also one of the by-products of the degradation of another explosive used in landmines, namely RDX. In the latter case, this can be achieved by the soil bacterium Rhodococcus rhodochrous (Seth-Smith, H.M.B 2002).

Our project is concerned in making a biosensor that would detect both the presence of TNT and nitrites/nitrates.

Natural nitrite concentration in soil tends to be very low (below 0.1 mg NO2-N /kg)( Oswald Van Cleemput 1996). Thereby the possibility of false positive results decreases. Our biosensor would also detect nitrates but these would need to be at a much higher concentration than nitrites to bring about a response.

The fact that excessive fertilisation with ammonium producing fertilizers such as urea can cause an increase in the presence of nitrites in the soil (Smith & Chalk, 1980; Burns et al., 1995; van Cleemput & Samater, 1996) gives the possibility that our device can be used in diverse fields of interest, from landmine identification (ranging from TNT landmines to RDX ones), to assaying extent of fertiliser induced nitrite/nitrate pollution.

Please read our detailed project description and part characterisation for further details.