Team:Vilnius-Lithuania/Application
Coliclock application
Speaking in general, Coliclock system controls the lifetime of GMOs in the environment. But further than that, our team was interested in some more specific applications. We chose to analyze previous and this year's iGEM projects and tried to theoretically incorporate our system in their genetically engineered bacteria.
Bee. coli
First project that we were interested in, was 2013 Taipei team’s Bee.coli project. This team suggested light induced system to prevent the spreading of their genetically engineered bacteria. According to their data and experiment, this system works in vitro in a lab environment. If we think about Bee. Coli in the environmet and live bees, it’s easy to imagine that this kind of bacteria can spread in the dark and get into other species.
If we added our Coliclock system into Bee. coli, bacteria would produce proteins against Nosema ceranae, parazite, which affects bees and causes them to get sick and after some time this bacteria will die. In theory, Bee. coli project would ne responsible for the protein system, whilst our construct, Coliclock would be responsible for the time of the performed function. Regulation of light is not essential here and bacteria will back out on its own.
PlastiCure
Many iGEM projects, associated with some kind of material degradation, are based on the idea that bacteria only lives, when there is enough food around it. For example, oil decomposing bacteria dies, when there is scarcity of an oil around. But this system is not 100% safe. Bacteria does not have a system that prevents accidental spreading. Our system can be a solution.
This year Pasteur Paris team created a project, called PlastiCure. Their bacteriaq is able to decompose PET in seas and use following degradation products to synthesize bioactive compouds. In this case we can suggest our system. If we had incorporated Coliclock in Plasticure, it would become a safe solution to world oceans.
Auxin
Finally, we decided to analyze 2011 London Imperial College team’s project Auxin. Team Imperial tried to solve the soil erosion problem. The main problem here is that a plant's, which grows in very dry environment, roots can not reach water in soil. Then, obviously, it can not grow.
The project was divided into three modules. Module 1 – Phyto-Route – bacteria access into the roots (in this case bacteria produce chemoreceptor PA2652). Module 2 – Auxin Xpress – involves expression of IAA, which is essential for root growth. And module 3 – Gene Guard. Here we focus exactly on module 3. The team suggested Gene Guard system, which prevents bacteria spreading in the environment. Gene guard is based on toxin-antitoxin system, where anti-holin is engineered into genome and acts as antitoxin, and holin together with endolysin on plasmid DNA acts as toxins. Toxin-antitoxin system is efective, when horizontal gene transfer occurs. With our system Auxin project could be improved.
Bacteria is programed to produce PA2652 and IAA for the exact amount of time and then die. Horizontal gene transfer would be not necessary. And also it is not necessary to produce IAA and PA2652 all the time, but only when plant is growing and until it reaches deep waters. Production time can be calculated, knowing how deep water is in the exact area, characterized by dry soil. It would be huge improvment for plants, that could not grow, because of lack of water.