South Middlesex Times

Scientists at Rutgers University-New Brunswick have made strides in utilizing RNA, a molecule ubiquitous in cells, to develop a biosensor capable of identifying small chemicals linked to human health. Their findings are anticipated to advance environmental monitoring and the diagnosis of major diseases.

“Imagine that people will go to the hospital and give a sample of cells from their own bodies for regular check-ups,” explained Enver Cagri Izgu, an assistant professor at Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences. “And there will be some technology involved in transforming their cells into sensor cells without changing their frame and physiology. Those cells would then be returned to the person’s body, and the body will never have the issue of rejecting because it's their own cells. Those cells will have the ability to talk to us and generate signals about whether we have traces of toxic chemicals or the beginnings of disease within us.”

The team, whose research was published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, revealed how RNA was integrated within bacterial cells to enable the detection of specific chemicals. These substances, essential to physiological processes, are traditionally undetectable through complex genetic methods.

“They used their chemistry knowledge and turned RNA into a detector for physiologically important and short-lived inorganic chemicals, such as hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen peroxide,” Izgu added. “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.”

The researchers successfully demonstrated this sensing mechanism within Escherichia coli, an organism they used for testing, as RNA transformed into an efficient chemical sensor under laboratory conditions.

One of the anticipated outcomes of Rutgers’ research is to adapt human cells into similar sensor cells. Izgu, alongside Tushar Aggarwal and other researchers, worked on a patent application filed by Rutgers University, marking potential progress in this innovative biomedical field.