The project CY-SENSORS targets the development of biosensors and biomimetic recognition element-based devices for the detection and separation of cyanobacteria metabolites with ecotoxicological and therapeutic applications, including cyanotoxins.

The project is led by the Blue Biotechnology and Ecology (BBE) laboratory at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR) having as co-promotor partner the BIOMARK, Sensor Research Group at the School of Engineering of the Polytechnic of Porto (ISEP) and at the University of Coimbra.

The main aims of the Project are to develop:

a) high throughput biosensors based on aptamers, to monitor biotoxins in marine and freshwater environments.

b) a new real-time multiplex high throughput bioassay to screen marine and freshwater cyanobacteria, to identify and isolate bioactive compounds with therapeutic applications, that act through transactivation of PPARs;

c) a new technology to separate/concentrate cyanotoxins using molecular imprinted polymers (MIPs).

CYANOBACTERIA and microalgae produce toxic blooms that are becoming increasingly frequent, mainly due to water quality degradation and other global changes, having serious socio-economic impacts on e.g. aquaculture, fisheries, agriculture and drinking water quality. There is an urge for low cost, rapid and sensitive monitoring methods to detect and quantify biotoxins, to assist risk analysis and provide data for safe decision and modelling, both at institutional and consumer level.

CYANOBACTERIA constitute a very promising bio-resource for the diverse range of metabolites produced during the primary and secondary metabolism, with possible bio-industrial applications. Some compounds with therapeutical use have already been identified e.g. anti-fungal, antibacterial, antiviral, anti-helminthic, antimitotic, anticancer, anticoagulation, and hemagglutinating properties.

CYANOTOXINS produced by some CYANOBACTERIA are used by laboratories all over the world in charge of seafood safety control as chromatography standards, having an extremely high added market value.

CELL-BASED sensing is a promising alternative to the existing bio-sensing techniques, as cells have the capability of identifying very minute concentrations of active compounds, offering the opportunity to screen with high sensitivity a broad range of chemically active substances which affect cells activity. The toxicity of such compounds being accessed simultaneously, through the growth and mortality rates of the cells used.

APTAMERS are a good alternative to monoclonal anti-bodies and HPLC techniques used nowadays for detection and quantification of toxins. They have also a very good affinity to the target, being cheaper and have a much longer shelf life time at room temperature. These advantages among others makes APTASENSORS suitable to use in field monitoring, e.g. to deployed in oceanographic buoys and final users dip test strips.

MOLECULAR IMPRINTED POLYMERS - MIPs - will be used to separate some target compounds, including CYANOTOXINS, discovered during the project, generating a much lower ecologic footprint, since the use of solvents is restricted.