美国哈佛医学院Michael Springer团队宣布他们利用条形码微生物系统实现了对物质来源的高分辨率追踪。2020年6月5日出版的《科学》发表了这项成果。

研究人员建立了一个合成的、可扩展的微生物孢子系统，该系统可在1小时内以米级分辨率和接近单孢子敏感度识别物体出处，并且可以安全地引入环境并从环境中回收。该系统解决了物体出处中的关键挑战：环境的持久性、可伸缩性、快速简便的解码以及生物防护。

该系统与SHERLOCK兼容，可实现广泛的应用。SHERLOCK是Cas13a RNA介导的核酸检测分析方法。

据介绍，确定物体到过何处是人类健康、商业和食品安全的根本挑战。环境特异性微生物原则上提供了一种便宜且灵敏的方法来确定物质出处。

附：英文原文

Title: Barcoded microbial system for high-resolution object provenance

Author: Jason Qian, Zhi-xiang Lu, Christopher P. Mancuso, Han-Ying Jhuang, Rocío del Carmen Barajas-Ornelas, Sarah A. Boswell, Fernando H. Ramírez-Guadiana, Victoria Jones, Akhila Sonti, Kole Sedlack, Lior Artzi, Giyoung Jung, Mohammad Arammash, Mary E. Pettit, Michael Melfi, Lorena Lyon, Sian V. Owen, Michael Baym, Ahmad S. Khalil, Pamela A. Silver, David Z. Rudner, Michael Springer

Issue&Volume: 2020/06/05

Abstract: Determining where an object has been is a fundamental challenge for human health, commerce, and food safety. Location-specific microbes in principle offer a cheap and sensitive way to determine object provenance. We created a synthetic, scalable microbial spore system that identifies object provenance in under 1 hour at meter-scale resolution and near single-spore sensitivity and can be safely introduced into and recovered from the environment. This system solves the key challenges in object provenance: persistence in the environment, scalability, rapid and facile decoding, and biocontainment. Our system is compatible with SHERLOCK, a Cas13a RNA-guided nucleic acid detection assay, facilitating its implementation in a wide range of applications.

DOI: 10.1126/science.aba5584

Source: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6495/1135