Miniaturized and integrated whole cell living bacterial sensors in field applicable autonomous devices

- Live cell sensors are perfectly suitable for integration in microfluidic devices.
- Important progress has been made with single-use, multiplexed or continuous biosensor measurements.
- Few but realistic examples appeared of autonomous biosensor instruments that may be incorporated in unmanned vehicles.
- Future developments are needed to improve biosensor detection sensitivity and speed.

Live-cell based bioreporters are increasingly being deployed in microstructures, which facilitates their handling and permits the development of instruments that could perform autonomous environmental monitoring. Here we review recent developments of on-chip integration of live-cell bioreporters, the coupling of their reporter signal to the devices, their longer term preservation and multi-analyte capacity. We show examples of instruments that have attempted to fully integrate bioreporters as their sensing elements.

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