Difference between revisions of "Team:Tokyo-NoKoGen/Overview"

-Object-

We have two objectives to realize our project.
・Exterminate termite in slow-acting method on a long-term basis
・Create a new pesticide which is not harmful to man

-Method-

To achieve these objective, we are engineering the E. coli which produce poison against termites and work in termite’s guts.

In our project, we focused on the two properties of termites.
First, we became aware of that cockroaches and termites are the same order and both of them use trehalose as the primary energy source.
Actually, NoKoGen engineered E. coli which has ability to kill cockroaches. So we thought that we can apply part of the method of previous project to exterminate termites.
In concrete method, we are planning to use 3,3-diketotrehalose. it is an inhibitor of trehalase which converts trehalose to glucose. Cockroach and termites digested carbohydrates and metabolized to trehalose. Trehalose stored in the blood and is taken up by cells additionally converts trehalose to glucose. 3,3-diketotrehalose is produced by the enzymatic reaction of glucose 3 dehydrogenase (G3DH).
We aim to express the G3DH in E. coli and prevent the trehalase activity by competitive inhibition.

Moreover, we construct OtsA and OtsB which convert glucose to trehalose.
Many more trehalose is converted to 3,3-diketotrehalose which inhibits termite’s passway.

Second properties of termites is that termites carry and lick their eggs.
Termites recognize their egg as spherical material has a diameter of 0.5 mm and pheromone. Based on this feature of termites, we try to make the pseudo-eggs to use the habit.
We are planning to make pseudo-eggs with LB agar which is cut to the spherical and engineered E. coli in it. We will treat this material as pseudo egg and apply the Lysozyme as termite’s pheromone so that termites recognize them as eggs and take them to termites colony.
We expect that this pseudo-eggs are effective to exterminate termites.

By these methods based on the feature of termites , we hope that we can achieve our objectives.

-Biosafety-

When we think about practical application of our termite extermination system, there are one big problem.
It is that we can’t avoid spreading gene recombinant microorganisms to the natural world. However, there are many restriction about application of gene recombinant microorganisms not to destroy the balance of nature.
To solve this problem and protect biosafety standards, we are planning to introduce bacteriolysis system in our project.
Our target, termites usually form colonies around dark and shadowy area, like under the floor. Inversely, our termites extermination system has no need to work in some places which are exposed to direct sunlight. So we are looking for some systems which can induce bacteriolysis to our engineered E.coli under white light or UV light.

-Human practice-

Medical drugs, cosmetics, genetically modified foods, detergents, and also pesticides….our everyday life is supported by cutting-edge biotechnology, but few people realize what you really use.
Tokyo-Nokogen is has some plans to spread some tips and knowledges about bioengineering and biotechnology.
One of our plan is educational activity. We have already had a small class to teach biotechnology familiar to the students in the high-school. Also we asked them what kind of device they wanted to create. There were some interesting ideas for us.
Also, we are planning to take a survey to the people at large in Japan and other countries.

We expect that our survey will be one of a chance for people to take an interest in biotechnology.