Team:Rock Ridge Virginia/Description

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Project Description

Bacteria Mimic to Combat Vector-borne Diseases (Lyme disease)

The Rock Ridge iGEM Squad is working to create an efficient and harmless method of eradicating Lyme disease in Loudoun County and hopefully throughout the biosphere. If the project succeeds, the Rock Ridge iGEM Squad will have laid out a solid foundation for forthcoming vaccinations for other vector-borne diseases. With the bacteria mimic, the team will create a bacteria that will mimic Lyme bacteria to combat Lyme disease. During the experiment, we will be using Drosophila melanogaster as our insect model since they are much easier to work with rather than ticks. Using E. coli as our chassis, the team will add surface protein genes from Wolbachia and Lyme bacteria to BL21 and/or DH5-alpha cells.Wolbachia surface protein will be expressed in our mimic and it will help our mimic be passed down from one generation to the next since it binds to sex cell of the female insects. In nature, Lyme Bacteria establishes itself in the gut of the tick by expressing the protein OspA. Our plasmid is designed to constitutively express OspA and establish itself in the gut of the tick instead of the Lyme bacteria. When Lyme bacteria infects our tick it will have no place to bind itself in the gut and will not be established. A fluorescent gene will be added, which will let us know that bacteria mimic is present in the insect. The team will then proceed to conduct the same process in ticks, which are the primary hosts for Lyme. Once the ticks with the new modifications are released into the wild, they will mate naturally and pass on the mimic bacteria. This new method can provide a strong basis for the development of other mimic for vector-borne diseases such as Dengue Fever, Malaria, and more.

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