ArticleNature biotechnology2020
Cell-free biosensors for rapid detection of water contaminants.
Article in Nature biotechnology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 158 papers.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
158 citing papers in PubMed, 383 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
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- Mammalian therapeutic riboswitches: Engineering and custom ligands.Molecular therapy. Nucleic acids · 2026Review
- Translating biosynthetic gene cluster architecture into biosensor design for microbial natural product discovery.Essays in biochemistry · 2026Review
- Engineering microbial consortia for distributed signal processing.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Tardigrade-Derived Strategy for Low-Cost Storage of Cell-Free Expression Lysates.ACS synthetic biology · 2026Article
- Ligify 2.0: a web server for predicted small molecule biosensors.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Designing a Whole-Cell Biosensor for Detection of Toxic Metals Using Intein Splicing Inhibition ofACS omega · 2026Article
- Construction of synthetic protein-binding non-genetic DNA systems in living cells.Nature chemistry · 2026Article
- International multisite implementation of distributed cell-free protein biomanufacturing to advance health and research equity.Science advances · 2026Article
- Visual detection of collective highly toxic metals in water by a handheld whole-cell biosensing detector: From circuit to field.iScience · 2026Article
- Extreme sensitivity label-free biosensing platform based on topologically disruptive phase nano-optics.Microsystems & nanoengineering · 2026Article
- CF2H: a cell-free two-hybrid platform for rapid protein binder screening.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Design-driven optimization of low-cost reagent formulations for reproducible and high-yielding cell-free gene expression.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Programming Next-Generation Synthetic Biosensors by Genetic Circuit Design.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Review
- Quantum Dot and Nucleic Acid Optical Readout for Cell-Free Biosensing.ACS nanoscience Au · 2026Article
- Engineering Allosteric Transcription Factor-Based Biosensors: Advances and Prospects for Modern Food Contaminant Monitoring.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Toehold-VISTA: a machine learning approach to decipher programmable RNA sensor-target interactions.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Synthetic Biology of Plants and Microbes for Agriculture, Environment, and Future Applications.Chemical reviews · 2026Review
- Characterizing Cell-Free Transcription and Translation Dynamics with Nucleic Acid-Based Assays.ACS synthetic biology · 2026Article
98 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors at 7 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Lack of access to safe drinking water is a global problem, and methods to reliably and easily detect contaminants could be transformative. We report the development of a cell-free in vitro transcription system that uses RNA Output Sensors Activated by Ligand Induction (ROSALIND) to detect contaminants in water. A combination of highly processive RNA polymerases, allosteric protein transcription factors and synthetic DNA transcription templates regulates the synthesis of a fluorescence-activating RNA aptamer. The presence of a target contaminant induces the transcription of the aptamer, and a fluorescent signal is produced. We apply ROSALIND to detect a range of water contaminants, including antibiotics, small molecules and metals. We also show that adding RNA circuitry can invert responses, reduce crosstalk and improve sensitivity without protein engineering. The ROSALIND system can be freeze-dried for easy storage and distribution, and we apply it in the field to test municipal water supplies, demonstrating its potential use for monitoring water quality.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.