Pb-Collector: Heavy metal lead removal from contaminated waters
Lead contamination is one of the most severe heavy metal pollutions in the world, due to its widespread use and incorrect disposal to environment. Accumulation of lead can cause lead poisoning to all living organisms. In this project, we aim to design and construct a E.coli-based system to sense and bioabsorb the lead to provide a promising way for lead pollution treatment. We tried to construct the lead bioremediation system combined with a lead-responsive reporter system. The lead bioremediation system includes two metal-binding proteins, a metallothionein and a synthetic phytochelatin expressed by surface-display system. For the future, we hope through our effort, we can finally establish a reliable, low cost method to solve the problem of lead pollution in serious contamination areas.
