IDEA SUMMARY

Problems like food spoilage are a major concern in our lives mainly because such problems have a direct impact on the health of a person, which is the most important thing. Food spoilage is caused by the biochemical activities of a microbial community that grows in the prevailing conditions.

Some of the present tools that help in identifying food spoilage are CFU analysis, ATP bioluminescence assays, volatile compound analysis, Electrical impedance measurement etc.

But these are time-consuming, tedious, expensive and not accurate enough.

What if we are given a tool which could monitor food spoilage and in itself is harmless to the body?

Let us help you know about a cool application of Biotechnology as marker of food spoilage!

Project Overview

It is known that bacteria often communicate with each other through Quorum sensing, where the communication is through certain signal molecules that freely diffuse into the environment. As the number of bacteria in a region increases, the concentration of signal molecules also increases.

After a certain threshold concentration, these signal molecules bind to promoter and induce the gene of interest. This helps them to express their genes together and cause a larger impact. They also “become aware” of the concentration of their own species and of other species in their vicinity.

Recent research has shown the possibility of the involvement of quorum sensing in food spoilage. The enzymatic activities that account for quality degradation of the food product are regulated by quorum sensing activity. Also, the quorum molecules (autoinducers) are detected in spoiled food products.

We aim to make a genetically engineered bacteria that senses the concentration of other food spoiling bacteria and expresses a colour pigment.

The engineered E.coli senses the concentration of other bacteria and triggers the expression of lycopene (red-coloured) pigment which can be easily observed with the naked eye.

Application

Packets will have a pouch with a sample of product and our engineered bacteria. Detection of AHLs (in the case of food contamination) in the product sample will trigger the expression of the lycopene gene that will produce the red-coloured pigment (easily observable to the human eye).