DNA纳米技术应用于水环境污染示踪

The application of DNA nanotechnology to trace water environmental pollution

水环境污染是当前人类社会所面临的严峻挑战之一,阻碍了全球生态环境和社会经济的可持续发展.潜在污染源众多和水文地质条件的复杂性导致对污染源追溯、污染范围界定和污染程度量化等问题的研判十分棘手.针对这些难题,已发展了多种水环境污染物迁移示踪系统,例如离子化合物、有色染料和同位素等,这些示踪系统的应用对水环境污染治理起到了重要的推动作用.近年来,快速发展的基于脱氧核糖核酸(deoxyribo nucleic acid,DNA)纳米技术的示踪方法(DNA示踪技术)逐渐崭露头角,其是应用DNA片段作为特异性标记物进行水环境污染示踪.与已有的示踪技术相比,DNA示踪技术具有示踪剂数量巨大、特异性强、检测灵敏、运移及降解特性可控和环境友好等诸多优势,是极具潜力的新一代示踪技术.DNA示踪技术的研发与应用集成了生物化学、材料科学、环境工程和水文地质等多学科知识,是典型的交叉研究领域.为促进DNA示踪技术体系的长足发展以及水环境污染防治能力的不断增强,本文重点阐述了DNA片段作为水环境污染示踪剂的原理与方法,全面梳理了DNA示踪技术体系的发展脉络,总结探讨了DNA示踪技术在水环境污染示踪研究中的典型应用,最后展望了未来重要的研究方向.

Water pollution is one of the most severe challenges to human society,which seriously hinders the sustainable development of global ecological environments and social economy.It is extremely difficult to trace the pollution source,determine the pollution scope and quantify the pollution degree,due to the large number of potential pollution sources and the complexity of hydrogeological processes.To address these challenges,a variety of tracer systems for water environmental pollutants have been developed,including ions,dyes,microorganisms,stable isotopes,etc.The application of these tracer systems has played an important role in promoting the treatment of water environmental pollution,which is of great significance for improving the water ecological environment.However,these traditional tracer systems still exist many limitations,such as strong environmental background noise,limited quantity,uncontrollability,low detection sensitivity,etc.There is an urgent need to develop new and robust tracer systems.In recent years,the rapidly developing tracer system(DNA tracer system) based on deoxyribonucleic acid(DNA)nanomaterials is gradually emerging,which uses DNA fragments as specific markers to trace hydrological pathways and water environmental pollution.Compared with the existing tracer systems,the DNA tracer system has many outstanding advantages,such as large quantity,strong specificity,sensitive detection,stable and controllable migration and degradation,and environment-friendly.It is a promising new generation of tracer systems.However,the development and application of the DNA tracer system involves multi-disciplinary knowledge such as biochemistry,materials science,environmental engineering and hydrogeology,which is a typical cross-research field.Therefore,the application of the DNA tracer system usually requires adequate interdisciplinary knowledge.This undoubtedly increases the difficulty of its application.In order to promote the further development of the DNA tracer system and enhance the prevention and treatment ability of water environmental pollution,this review focuses on the principle and method of DNA fragments as tracers for water environmental pollution,highlights three main advantages of the DNA tracer system compared to traditional tracer systems,comprehensively reviews the development of the DNA tracer system since 1995,and summarizes the typical application of the DNA tracer system in the study of water environmental pollution.Finally,the important research directions in the future are prospected.These research directions include the optimization design of DNA base sequence,simplification and standardization of DNA tracer fabrication,characterization of DNA tracer transport in surface and underground water,application strategy of DNA tracers under complex water environments,and combined application scheme of DNA tracing technology and other technologies.Despite nearly 30 years of development,the DNA tracer system is still in its infancy stage,and further understanding of the structural properties of DNA nanomaterials and its molecular mechanism for analysis of environmental pollution is needed.The development of DNA tracers is a useful addition to the tracer family,which is also of positive significance for better identification of pollution risks in water environments.We believe that the DNA tracer system will have a broad development prospect in the future.