Time for a snifter: Beer yeast has a nose for explosives
Date: 9.5.2007
Biotechnologists have engineered brewer's yeast so that it glows green in response to an ingredient found in land mines, according to a study published online on Monday.
Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a yeast used in baking as well as brewing, was engineered so that it had an "olfactory pathway" that responded to airborne molecules of DNT.
DNT -- chemical name 2,4-dinitrotoluene -- is a residue from the making of the explosive TNT. Dogs trained to sniff for explosives are believed in fact to be trained to detect DNT.
A gene found in rats was spliced into the yeast's genome so that the surface of its cells reacted in response to DNT, the paper says...
Whole article "PhysOrg":[ www.physorg.com]
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