Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/C001397/1
An investigation of the time depency of concentration of naked and armoured DNA tracers under environmental conditions
Grant Award
- Principal Investigator:
- Professor J McCloskey, University of Ulster, Sch of Environmental Sciences
- Co-Investigator:
- Professor AJ Bjourson, University of Ulster, Sch of Biomedical Sciences
- Grant held at:
- University of Ulster, Sch of Environmental Sciences
- Science Area:
- Marine
- Freshwater
- Earth
- Overall Classification:
- Earth
- ENRIs:
- Pollution and Waste
- Natural Resource Management
- Global Change
- Environmental Risks and Hazards
- Science Topics:
- Ocean Circulation
- Earth Resources
- Hydrological Processes
- Hydrogeology
- Abstract:
- Tracing the movement of fluids in many environments is vitally important for understanding and managing a diverse range of systems. Examples include the tracing of liquids, in the ground, in rivers and lakes, in the sea, or tracing liquid waste released from various industrial sources into the environment. In addition, large scale ocean currents are known to control the climate over much of the earth, and a detailed understanding of their dynamics is extremely important if we are to understand the earths climate and predict its behaviour. These environmental systems have in common inherent complexity; the earths crust contains complex fractures, ocean currents are driven by both global and local influences and are turbulent and complicated in detail, river water flows over and through a river catchment through a complex drainage network, sometimes containing lakes, ultimately to the sea. One of the chief methods for studying many such systems is the injection of a tracer, such as a dye, into the flow at one place and time and to monitor its concentration at other places and other times. Unfortunately there exist, presently, only a very few tracers which can be used safely. Some of the limited number of available tracers, for example radioactive tracers, are environmentally unacceptable as are high concentrations of some of the more benign ones. It is accepted that the development of a tracer technology which could supply a large number of environmentally acceptable tracers which could be accurately detected and quantified at very low concentrations would be of significant use in a wide range of applications such as those mentioned above. This project aims at the further development of a tracer system which uses the uniqueness of DNA molecules to provide a large number of different tracers and their self copying properties to detect the tracers at very low concentrations. DNA is highly suited as a tracer because there is an almost unlimited number of different unique tracers that can be created. A string of 50 bases (ACG or T), for example, give a possible 1030 different molecules! Another huge advantage of using DNA tracers is that 1 molecule of such a tracer can be multiplied to many billions of molecules in about 60 minutes by a technique known as PCR (PCR can be thought of as a molecular photocopier). Minute amounts of harmless DNA tracers can be released into the environment and detected at extremely low levels (one molecule can be detected in theory). Unfortunately, there are a few very important problems: DNA is rapidly adsorbed by clay or sand and is broken down by enzymes known as nucleases, or by microbes in the environment. In this project we intend, firstly, to measure the speed of these degradation processes and then to test several methods to slow them up. By altering the links between the DNA bases and by coating the molecules with protein (and other) molecules we hope to be able to alter their charge structure to stop them sticking to minerals and to make them less tasty to microbes and nucleases. Our methods are simple. We basically pump the fluid we are interested in containing the tracer under study (either naked or coated) though columns which contain elements of the environment we want to test. This might include crushed rock, soil, clay sand or just plain glass beads (as a control). Samples of the fluid will be extracted at predetermined intervals in time over long periods (say up to a month or so) and each one analysed to determine how much of the tracer remains. This should allow us to see how naked DNA survives and how the various armouring techniques improve the situation. By taking the columns apart and seeing how much DNA is stuck to the crushed rock (for example) we will also be able to see whether adsorption or digestion is the main cause of concentration decay. The project will involve three scientists for considerable fractions (up to 50%) of their time and will last for two years.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/C001397/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Small Grants Pre FEC
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Small Grants
This grant award has a total value of £28,832
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| Total - Other Costs | Total - Equipment |
|---|---|
| £21,731 | £7,102 |
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