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Water is the most precious and fragile resource on Earth. Nevertheless human activities are responsible for an important pollution of drinking water as well as sea water. The polluting elements are varied, we can quote nitrate, heavy metals, phenols, plastics, PCB etc.... All these elements can cause a lot of problems to the flora and a fortiori to the fauna. This year, our team objective is to develop a filtrating system which could allow to sense pollutants and even degrade toxic coumpounds. In this perspective, the sponge offers great possibilities. It is an autonomous organism and the most powerful filtrating system alive which can filtrate 20m3 of water/day/kg of sponge. Our project is based on the engineering of a bacteria in the sponge's microbiome. In this framework, we are developping a new chassis for water depollution by engineering Pseudovibrio denitrificans, one of the most common bacterium in the sponge's microbiome. In this bacterium, we intend to introduce a new sensing and coloring system depending specific to the presence of pollutants. As this bacterium lives in symbiosis with the sponge, our solution is entirely safe and environmentally-friendly. Moreover our project is applicable to a larger scale because it can reduce the impact of companies on the environment which comply with the Europeans regulations (e.g REACH). We offer to the industrials a way of managing their chemical waste. Concerning the preservation of ecosystems, this will allow companies to comply with the directives on water by improving aquatic ecosystems and having less impact on the environment.
