Microbial cell-based biosensors take microorganism cells for biological sense organs,which are capable of quickly sensing and/or detecting total toxicity and various kinds of pollutants in the environment.More and more reports in this field have been published.With the rapid progress of the research,this technique has become more and more mature.At first,it could only monitor total toxicity of the environment with the aid of bioluminescent bacteria,and now it can be used to detect specifically various kinds of pollutants,including heavy metals(such as Hg,Cd,As,Pb,Cu,Ag,and Ni),organic pollutants(such as benzene,toluene,and PAHs),antibiotics(such as tetracycline,β-lactams),and even nutrient elements(such as nitrogen,phosphorus).Because of the characteristics of microorganism cells,this technology shows significant advantages and remarkable potentiality in the field of environmental monitoring,especially in detecting the bioavailability of pollutants.It can beused as an effective tool in in-situ environmental monitoring,quick and low in cost.So it can be expected that the technology will find more extensive application in environmental monitoring.A review of advancements in application of Microbial cell-based biosensors to environmental monitoring is presented and its future trends are also discussed.