一项研究说，科学家把活细胞组装到了一个探测气味的电子传感器中，而且有可能用于驱动一个机器人。
Shoji Takeuchi及其同事对非洲爪蟾的称为卵母细胞的卵细胞进行了遗传改造，从而复制了昆虫嗅觉受体的功能。这些受体进化出了一种识别特定化学物质并与其结合的机制，在这个过程中会产生微弱的电流。这组科学家把这些卵母细胞放进了一个经过专门设计的充满液体的盒子里，它能够用两个电极捕捉住单个卵母细胞并探测到这些细胞的膜上流动的电流。
这组作者说，在测试中，这种“生物混合型”传感器可以区分几乎相同的化学物质，诸如有同样的化学式但是分子结构稍有不同的化合物。为了测试这种装置在一种便携式系统中的潜力，这组科学家放大了这种传感器的输出并用它驱动了一个装备电动机的机器人。这组作者提出，这种传感器可能改善目前的气味探测系统的便携性，而且可以加入到一大批应用中，诸如环境监测和食品管理。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原文出处：
PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1004334107
highly sensitive and selective odorant sensor using living cells expressing insect olfactory receptors
Nobuo Misawaa,b,1, Hidefumi Mitsunob,c,1, Ryohei Kanzakic, and Shoji Takeuchia,b,2
This paper describes a highly sensitive and selective chemical sensor using living cells (Xenopus laevis oocytes) within a portable fluidic device. We constructed an odorant sensor whose sensitivity is a few parts per billion in solution and can simultaneously distinguish different types of chemicals that have only a slight difference in double bond isomerism or functional group such as ─OH, ─CHO and ─C(═O)─. We developed a semiautomatic method to install cells to the fluidic device and achieved stable and reproducible odorant sensing. In addition, we found that the sensor worked for multiple-target chemicals and can be integrated with a robotic system without any noise reduction systems. Our developed sensor is compact and easy to replace in the system. We believe that the sensor can potentially be incorporated into a portable system for monitoring environmental and physical conditions.
