A Microbial Cocaine Bioreporter

The continuous emergence of new illegal compounds, particularly psychoactive chemicals, poses significant challenges for current drug detection methods. Developing new protocols and kits for each new drug requires substantial time, effort, and dedicated manpower. Whole-cell bacterial bioreporters have been proven capable of detecting diverse hazardous compounds in both laboratory and field settings, identifying not only single compounds but also chemical families. We present the development of a microbial bioreporter for the detection of cocaine, the nervous system stimulant that is the second-most widely used illegal drug in the US. <i>Escherichia coli</i> was transformed with a plasmid containing a bacterial <i>luxCDABEG</i> bioluminescence gene cassette, activated by a cocaine-responsive signaling cascade. The engineered bioreporter is demonstrated to be a sensitive and specific first-generation detection system for cocaine, with detection thresholds of 17 ± 8 μg/L and 130 ± 50 μg/L in a buffer solution and in urine, respectively. Further improvement of the sensor’s performance was achieved by altering the nucleotide sequence of the <i>PBen</i> gene promoter, the construct’s sensing element, using accelerated site-directed evolution. The applicability of ready-to-use paper strips with immobilized bioreporter cells was demonstrated for cocaine detection in aqueous solutions.