Difference between revisions of "Team:HokkaidoU Japan"

HokkaidoU Japan 2015

Project Description

Insects are one of the most prospering kinds of living thing on Earth. Surprisingly, they do not have complex acquired immunity like we humans do. Instead, they only have innate immune system. This suggests that innate immunity may have very high potentials. Indeed, main immune system of insects using antimicrobial-peptides (AMPs) is known to work toward wide range of microbes, since they affect on cell membrane. Good part of AMPs is that it has less chance of getting resistant microbes.

This year, we iGEM HokkaidoU decided to work with AMPs.

Our first project is to make antimicrobial paper using thanatin, a kind of AMP. Our plan is to express thanatin with cellulose binding domain (CBD) in Escherichia coli. Difficulty here is that thanatin expressed by E. coli works to kill E. coli. To avoid this, we are planning to use inclusion bodies. By making thanatin peptides insoluble by putting 10xHis-tag, the peptides goes into inclusion body and get deactivated. In order to secrete thanatin from the E. coli cell, we are planning to use Antigen 43 and thrombin cutting site.

Our second project is to make antimicrobial yogurt using Lactobacillus casei. To do so, we are planning to use AMP called α-defensin. It is known from the research that in rats, α-defensins do not work towards resident flora (Masuda et al., 2011). According to the research group, similar tendency can be said to humans. In order to secrete α-defensin, we are planning to use sec system of L. casei. By having L. casei to secrete GFP withα-defensin, we can check whether α-defensin is being made correctly, and whether we have the safe yogurt.

Reference

Masuda, K., Sakai, N., Nakamura, K., Yoshioka, S., & Ayabe, T. (2011). Bactericidal activity of mouse α-defensin cryptdin-4 predominantly affects noncommensal bacteria. Journal of innate immunity, 3(3), 315-326.

Welcome to iGEM 2015!

Your team has been approved and you are ready to start the iGEM season!

Before you start:

Please read the following pages:

• Requirements page
• Wiki Requirements page

Editing your wiki

On this page you can document your project, introduce your team members, document your progress and share your iGEM experience with the rest of the world!

Click here to edit this page!

See tips on how to edit your wiki on the Template Documentation page.

Templates

This year we have created templates for teams to use freely. More information on how to use and edit the templates can be found on the Template Documentation page.

Tips

This wiki will be your team’s first interaction with the rest of the world, so here are a few tips to help you get started:

• State your accomplishments! Tell people what you have achieved from the start.
• Be clear about what you are doing and how you plan to do this.
• You have a global audience! Consider the different backgrounds that your users come from.
• Make sure information is easy to find; nothing should be more than 3 clicks away.
• Avoid using very small fonts and low contrast colors; information should be easy to read.
• Start documenting your project as early as possible; don’t leave anything to the last minute before the Wiki Freeze. For a complete list of deadlines visit the iGEM 2015 calendar
• Have lots of fun!

Inspiration

You can also view other team wikis for inspiration! Here are some examples:

• 2014 SDU Denmark
• 2014 Aalto-Helsinki
• 2014 LMU-Munich
• 2014 Michigan
• 2014 ITESM-Guadalajara
• 2014 SCU-China

Uploading pictures and files

You can upload your pictures and files to the iGEM 2015 server. Remember to keep all your pictures and files within your team's namespace or at least include your team's name in the file name.
When you upload, set the "Destination Filename" to Team:YourOfficialTeamName/NameOfFile.jpg. (If you don't do this, someone else might upload a different file with the same "Destination Filename", and your file would be erased!)