Difference between revisions of "Team:KU Leuven/InterLabStudy/Protocol"

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<h2> Introduction </h2>
 
<h2> Introduction </h2>
 
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Intrigued by the patterns occuring in nature, we started our research to design possible interaction schemes and genetic circuits. Looking at specialised literature, we were able to find some interesting papers concerning the formation of patterns using
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We began our experiments by constructing devices that contained constitutive promoters with low (J23117), medium (J23106) and higher (J23101) levels of GFP expression. Each device contains the biobrick I13504, necessary for GFP expression. We transformed the above mentioned biobrick and the promoters in E. cloni competent cells.
For example, Basu  created ring-like patterns based on chemical gradients of an acyl-homoserine lactone (OHHL) signal that is synthesized by ‘sender’ cells. In ‘receiver’ cells, designed genetic networks respond to differences in OHHL concentrations
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The cells were grown on a LB (from Sigma) 1.5% agar (from VWR Chemicals) plates with chloramphenicol (from Acros Organics) as a selection marker. As a positive control, we transformed the cells with pUC19 plasmid and plated them on LB plates containing ampicillin. We also plated cells without any plasmid as a negative control on LB plates containing chloramphenicol. We performed transformation of the biobricks twice by using chemically competent cells. The first time, we did not obtain any colonies of the four biobricks. The second time we got very few colonies. Nevertheless, the positive controls were correct every time, and we did double check the efficiency of the cells that proved to be very high. We concluded that our constructs were not easy to transform the bacteria. Therefore, to have more effective transformation, we switched to electroporation. This technique gave a higher efficiency and enough colonies for our experiments.
Combining our innovative and altered chemotaxis intercellular relationship with basic principles from both papers, allowed us to design our own circuit which will be elucidated in the following paragraphs.
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Thereafter we proceeded using the Biobrick Assembly Method to assemble the DNA. Subsequently we performed transformation using electrocompetent E.cloni cells, plated them in LB agar plates with antibiotic selection markers, and the plates were illuminated with blue/UV-light to check for the presence of GFP, and thus the functioning device.
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        For the fluorescent measurements we inoculated liquid cultures(3 mL-LB+Antibiotic) in polypropylene round-bottom tubes and incubated them for 16 to 18 hours in a shaking incubator (200 rpm) at 37 degrees. We recorded the fluorescent data from cells grown to an OD of ~0.5 (if the OD is higher bring it in the range 0.48-0.52) at 300 nm. Finally, the fluorescence data were collected from the overnight cultures of the constructed devices with an excitation and emission wavelengths of 483 nm and 525 nm respectively, in a 96-well plate by an Tecan Safire2 monochromator MTP Reader. Also, the absorbance measurements at 600 nm were repeated in the plate reader. This is important because the absorbance depends on the path length.
 
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Revision as of 13:30, 8 September 2015

In numerical
simulation
a computational
molecule describes
the space and
time relationship
of data.

Protocol

Introduction

We began our experiments by constructing devices that contained constitutive promoters with low (J23117), medium (J23106) and higher (J23101) levels of GFP expression. Each device contains the biobrick I13504, necessary for GFP expression. We transformed the above mentioned biobrick and the promoters in E. cloni competent cells. The cells were grown on a LB (from Sigma) 1.5% agar (from VWR Chemicals) plates with chloramphenicol (from Acros Organics) as a selection marker. As a positive control, we transformed the cells with pUC19 plasmid and plated them on LB plates containing ampicillin. We also plated cells without any plasmid as a negative control on LB plates containing chloramphenicol. We performed transformation of the biobricks twice by using chemically competent cells. The first time, we did not obtain any colonies of the four biobricks. The second time we got very few colonies. Nevertheless, the positive controls were correct every time, and we did double check the efficiency of the cells that proved to be very high. We concluded that our constructs were not easy to transform the bacteria. Therefore, to have more effective transformation, we switched to electroporation. This technique gave a higher efficiency and enough colonies for our experiments. Thereafter we proceeded using the Biobrick Assembly Method to assemble the DNA. Subsequently we performed transformation using electrocompetent E.cloni cells, plated them in LB agar plates with antibiotic selection markers, and the plates were illuminated with blue/UV-light to check for the presence of GFP, and thus the functioning device. For the fluorescent measurements we inoculated liquid cultures(3 mL-LB+Antibiotic) in polypropylene round-bottom tubes and incubated them for 16 to 18 hours in a shaking incubator (200 rpm) at 37 degrees. We recorded the fluorescent data from cells grown to an OD of ~0.5 (if the OD is higher bring it in the range 0.48-0.52) at 300 nm. Finally, the fluorescence data were collected from the overnight cultures of the constructed devices with an excitation and emission wavelengths of 483 nm and 525 nm respectively, in a 96-well plate by an Tecan Safire2 monochromator MTP Reader. Also, the absorbance measurements at 600 nm were repeated in the plate reader. This is important because the absorbance depends on the path length.

Contact

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