Team:Heidelberg/Description
Improvement of a Part
By fusing an ATP-aptamer to Spinach2, we created an ATP-sensor with fluorescent readout.
One of the main strengths of synthetic biology, compared to other scientific disciplines is the strong community it is build upon. Yet this community is nothing without active participation and interaction. We therefore see it as a very important responsibility of all iGEM-teams to constantly improve and newly apply parts submitted to the registry. As we were working with functional nucleotides, we soon took notice of BBa_K1330000, better known as Spinach2.1 from DTU Denmark iGEM team 2014. This modified version of Spinach2 was made compatible with the RFC 10 standard without change of functionality.
Envisionning the introduction of the power of aptamers and aptazymes to the iGEM community, we improved part BBa_K1330000 by making it depending on and thereby capable of sensing ATP - we call it BBa_K1614019. We show a possible application of this improved part in the optimization of in vitro transcription conditions and furthermore enhance the readout and the activity by software engineering. Besides, one could imagine sensing other small molecules in a standardized way.
Figure 1 displays both, the principle behind creating a fusion of Spinach2 (BBa_K1330000) and a small molecule aptamer, as well as the way the software designed by our team was used for creation and improvement of the novel ATP-dependent Spinach2.