Difference between revisions of "Team:Uppsala"

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     Nature is a biologist’s working bench - and as such we like to keep it tidy. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a major pollutant derived from human activity - coil burning, oil spills, gasification plant waste. It’s carcinogenic, insoluble in water and hard to degrade. Thankfully, we’re also engineers and we decided to help nature do it’s thing.
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     Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are produced by various activities, from grilling meat to coal gasification, and are potent carcinogens. Our project aims to degrade PAHs in industrial waste. The current waste handling method for PAHs is simply to deposit them in landfills where they leak into environment. Our cells need to detect the PAHs for the degradation. But the molecules do not readily pass through the membrane. We solved this predicament by using one of the smaller PAHs as an indicator to degrade the heavier PAHs. The degradation of this small PAH inside the cell relieves repression of genes under the control of the NahR/Psal promoter system. This causes a series of enzymes to get expressed and secreted outside the cell, oxidising and cleaving the ring structures of the carcinogenic compounds, making them available for downstream biodegradation. To increase the degradation efficiency our system also produces rhamnolipids.
 
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    PAHs are a major problem because they are stable and hydrophobic  meaning once an area is polluted, cleaning up is very hard  like trying to wash a greasy pan by dipping it in cold water! By using the help of bacteria, these contaminants can be removed from the environment (for example in wastewater treatment plants). Best of all  it will require minimum effort, because bacteria will degrade the compounds all by themselves, and with pleasure.
 
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    We took a two-way approach for the project  first we’ll enhance E.coli with the ability to degrade PAHs by inserting a biobrick construct  containing laccase  a powerful enzyme that helps get rid of those pesky compounds. And second, we’ll develop a biosensor, so that bacteria don’t waste their time producing enzymes when there is nothing to break down.
 
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Revision as of 11:00, 6 August 2015

iGEM Uppsala

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Abstract


Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are produced by various activities, from grilling meat to coal gasification, and are potent carcinogens. Our project aims to degrade PAHs in industrial waste. The current waste handling method for PAHs is simply to deposit them in landfills where they leak into environment. Our cells need to detect the PAHs for the degradation. But the molecules do not readily pass through the membrane. We solved this predicament by using one of the smaller PAHs as an indicator to degrade the heavier PAHs. The degradation of this small PAH inside the cell relieves repression of genes under the control of the NahR/Psal promoter system. This causes a series of enzymes to get expressed and secreted outside the cell, oxidising and cleaving the ring structures of the carcinogenic compounds, making them available for downstream biodegradation. To increase the degradation efficiency our system also produces rhamnolipids.