Preparation and Testing of Impedance-based Fluidic Biochips with RTgill-W1 Cells for Rapid Evaluation of Drinking Water Samples for Toxicity

Live-Cell Systems in Real-Time Biomonitoring of Water Pollution: Practical Considerations and Future Perspectives

Continuous monitoring and early warning of potential water contamination with toxic chemicals is of paramount importance for human health and sustainable food production. During the last few decades there have been noteworthy advances in technologies for the automated sensing of physicochemical parameters of water. These do not translate well into online monitoring of chemical pollutants since most of them are either incapable of real-time detection or unable to detect impacts on biological organisms. As a result, biological early warning systems have been proposed to supplement conventional water quality test strategies. Such systems can continuously evaluate physiological parameters of suitable aquatic species and alert the user to the presence of toxicants. In this regard, single cellular organisms, such as bacteria, cyanobacteria, micro-algae and vertebrate cell lines, offer promising avenues for development of water biosensors. Historically, only a handful of systems utilising single-cell organisms have been deployed as established online water biomonitoring tools. Recent advances in recombinant microorganisms, cell immobilisation techniques, live-cell microarrays and microfluidic Lab-on-a-Chip technologies open new avenues to develop miniaturised systems capable of detecting a broad range of water contaminants. In experimental settings, they have been shown as sensitive and rapid biosensors with capabilities to detect traces of contaminants. In this work, we critically review the recent advances and practical prospects of biological early warning systems based on live-cell biosensors. We demonstrate historical deployment successes, technological innovations, as well as current challenges for the broader deployment of live-cell biosensors in the monitoring of water quality.

Altered function of the left ventricle and clinical significance of heart-type fatty acid-binding protein in cardiac dysfunction among patients with sepsis

The present study aimed to determine the clinical significance of heart-type fatty acid-binding protein (H-FABP) in patients with sepsis-induced cardiac dysfunction. A total of 30 healthy subjects served as the control group and 80 patients with sepsis were recruited for the present single-center prospective observational study for the final analysis. Among these patients, 50 developed cardiac dysfunction, while no cardiac dysfunction was detected in the remaining 30 patients. Echocardiography was performed on days 1, 3, 7 and 10 of hospitalization. Routine blood biochemistry, serum H-FABP, N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) and troponin I were also analyzed. Alterations in cardiac biomarkers and echocardiography results were compared between patients with sepsis who did and who did not develop any cardiac dysfunction to determine the time of the occurrence of sepsis-induced cardiac dysfunction. Furthermore, the significance of H-FABP in the prediction of the 28-day mortality rate was evaluated using binary logistic regression analysis for sepsis and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. In addition, the specificity and sensitivity of H-FABP in the prediction of sepsis-induced cardiac dysfunction were verified using ROC curve analysis. For patients with cardiac dysfunction, the levels of cardiac output (CO), stroke volume (SV), mitral early diastolic peak velocity to mitral atrial systolic peak velocity ratio (E/A) and left ventricle ejection fraction (LVEF) were relatively decreased, while the levels of H-FABP and NT-proBNP were markedly increased compared with patients with sepsis and without cardiac dysfunction. CO and SV initially increased and subsequently decreased. EF was elevated, and E/A initially decreased and subsequently increased. Furthermore, H-FABP and NT-proBNP decreased in sepsis patients with cardiac dysfunction. The results of the ROC curve and binary logistic regression analyses suggest that H-FABP was associated with the 28-day prognosis for patients with sepsis. An H-FABP level of >35.7 ng/ml was able to predict the 28-day mortality for patients with sepsis, with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.680. Furthermore, >30.3 ng/ml was the threshold for the prediction of sepsis-induced cardiac dysfunction, and the sensitivity and specificity were 76.27 and 61.76%, respectively, with an AUC of 0.673. In summary, patients with sepsis had an increased risk of cardiac insufficiency on days 7-10 of hospitalization. In addition, H-FABP may serve as an indicator to predict the prognosis of patients with sepsis in the short term, which has a certain significance in the diagnosis of sepsis-induced cardiac dysfunction.