Difference between revisions of "Team:Paris Bettencourt/Project/VitaminA"
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<div class="column-left" align="justify"> | <div class="column-left" align="justify"> | ||
<h1 class="date one">Motivation</h1> | <h1 class="date one">Motivation</h1> | ||
− | <p>Vitamin A deficiency is a crucial issue in India, affecting millions of people. | + | <p><b>Current situation</b> |
− | + | <br>Vitamin A deficiency is a <a href="https://2015.igem.org/Team:Paris_Bettencourt/Background">crucial issue</a> in India, affecting millions of people. | |
<br>The government developed different programs to provide people with vitamin A supplements, but they are not very convenient (people need to go to a center everyday to receive it), only help a small portion of the population, and the retinol present in the supplements is not as healthy as the ß-carotene found in food. Another solution which has been proposed is Golden Rice, a rice that have been genetically engineered to synthesize vitamin A. However, the Golden Rice is the subject of many controversies, and has not been implemented in India. | <br>The government developed different programs to provide people with vitamin A supplements, but they are not very convenient (people need to go to a center everyday to receive it), only help a small portion of the population, and the retinol present in the supplements is not as healthy as the ß-carotene found in food. Another solution which has been proposed is Golden Rice, a rice that have been genetically engineered to synthesize vitamin A. However, the Golden Rice is the subject of many controversies, and has not been implemented in India. | ||
+ | |||
+ | <br><br><b>Our idea</b> | ||
<br>Our idea is to have the vitamin A produced by the microbiome of fermented foods, and not by the cereal itself. It is much more easier, cheaper and faster to genetically engineer micro-organisms than plants. And for the consumer, it is much less intrusive and constraining to have a starter of yeast and bacteria which they can chose to add or not in their food at anytime, than to have to change their entire crops as proposed by the Golden Rice project. | <br>Our idea is to have the vitamin A produced by the microbiome of fermented foods, and not by the cereal itself. It is much more easier, cheaper and faster to genetically engineer micro-organisms than plants. And for the consumer, it is much less intrusive and constraining to have a starter of yeast and bacteria which they can chose to add or not in their food at anytime, than to have to change their entire crops as proposed by the Golden Rice project. | ||
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− | <div class="column-right" align="left"><img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2015/f/f3/Imagepathwayvjbjba2015.png" width=" | + | <div class="column-right" align="left"><img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2015/f/f3/Imagepathwayvjbjba2015.png" width="40%"> |
<br>HMG-CoA: 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A | <br>HMG-CoA: 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A | ||
<br>HMG1 and HMG2 (paralogs): HMG-CoA reductase | <br>HMG1 and HMG2 (paralogs): HMG-CoA reductase | ||
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− | < | + | <div align="center"><img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2015/9/95/ParisBettencourt_polycistron_schema.jpg" width="500px"></img></div> |
+ | <br>In 2014, Beekwilder & als. assembled the crtE, crtYB and crtI genes into a polycistronic construct where the individual Crt proteins were separated by the T2A sequences of the <i>Thosea asigna</i> virus.<br> Their polycistron is under the regulation of the strong yeast promoter TDH3, and the terminator TEF1. | ||
They were able to show that the addition of those genes to <i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i> was enough to make it produce ß-carotene.<br> | They were able to show that the addition of those genes to <i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i> was enough to make it produce ß-carotene.<br> | ||
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</div> | </div> | ||
Revision as of 22:58, 18 September 2015