Team:UMBC-Maryland/Results

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Project Results

We genetically engineered several strains of E. coli in an effort to increase copper resistance and collection. We named each strain after our school's mascot, the Chesapeake Bay Retriever. Retriever 1 (Ret1) has been given the yeast metallothionein gene CUP1. Retriever 2 (Ret2) has been given the same CUP1 gene codon optimized for E. coli. Retriever 3 (Ret3) has been given the CUP1 gene codon optimized, fused with bacteriophage lambda receptor (LamB). Each strain was tested for cell density and extracellular copper concentration at different initial copper sulfate concentrations for 7-10 hours.

Ret1 and Ret3 showed no significant cell growth, possibly due to the toxicity of the protein, or due to the stress placed on the cell from protein synthesis. A Ret2 SDS gel showed expressed metallothionein protein, and absorbance measures showed a decreased extracellular copper concentration. Ret2 was successful in decreasing copper concentration in the solution, and was the only strain that showed promise.

In the future, we wish to do data analysis and further test the ability for a LamB-Metallothionein fusion to improve the cell's copper absorbance ability.