Difference between revisions of "Team:Michigan"

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       <h2> Abstract </h2>
 
       <h2> Abstract </h2>
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       <p>In the past year, paper­based transcription and translation, reconstituted from freeze­drying, have been
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       <p>In the past year, paper-based transcription and translation, reconstituted from freeze-drying, have been adapted in a variety of ways and shown to be effective after a year of storage at room temperature.  This system, when freeze-dried on paper, is cheap and portable, making it well suited to tackle the unmet needs for disease detection in remote areas. Equally important, toehold switches that can be adapted to virtually any trigger RNA have been optimized. While paper-based gene networks have been used to detect proteins, no generalizable detection strategy has been attempted. Aptapaper uses the targeting specificity of aptamers and the modularity of toehold switches to explore protein detection systems that can easily be adapted to any peptide target.
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adapted in a variety of ways and shown to be effective after a year of storage at room temperature. 
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However, currently, this technology is severely limited in its applications because protein detection
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requires a different strategy for each individual protein.  Aptapaper uses the targeting specificity of
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aptamers to create a modular protein detection system that can easily be adapted to any protein.  A DNA
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aptamer is bound to a DNA trigger and becomes unbound in response to its protein of specificity. This
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frees the DNA trigger to turn on an RNA toehold switch, resulting in a 40 fold change in reporter protein
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expression, with more results to come.  This system, when freeze­dried on paper, is cheap and portable,  
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making it well suited to tackle the unmet needs for disease detection in remote areas.<br><br>
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Aptapaper uses a genetic switch system and the targeting specificity of aptamers to detect virtually any
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protein, all on a simple piece of filter paper. A DNA aptamer is bound to a DNA trigger and becomes
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unbound in response to its protein of specificity. This frees the DNA trigger to turn on an RNA toehold  
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switch, resulting in translation of a reporter protein. This system can easily be freeze­dried on paper,
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creating a cheap, durable device. We used a toehold switch design that can easily be adapted to any  
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trigger RNA, while still maintaining fold changes over 100, at very low background. The trigger can thus
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be adapted to any aptamer, and the modularity of these toehold switches is maintained.<br><br>
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Equally important, versatile toehold switches have been optimized and demonstrated to turn on a gene
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circuit in response to virtually any trigger RNA.</p>
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<div class="seal"><img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2015/0/0a/Umich-seal.jpg"></div>
 
<div class="seal"><img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2015/0/0a/Umich-seal.jpg"></div>
 
</html>
 
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Revision as of 03:58, 18 September 2015

Abstract

In the past year, paper-based transcription and translation, reconstituted from freeze-drying, have been adapted in a variety of ways and shown to be effective after a year of storage at room temperature. This system, when freeze-dried on paper, is cheap and portable, making it well suited to tackle the unmet needs for disease detection in remote areas. Equally important, toehold switches that can be adapted to virtually any trigger RNA have been optimized. While paper-based gene networks have been used to detect proteins, no generalizable detection strategy has been attempted. Aptapaper uses the targeting specificity of aptamers and the modularity of toehold switches to explore protein detection systems that can easily be adapted to any peptide target.