Team:William and Mary

NOISE

Characterization of promoter-derived transcriptional noise in E. coli

What is noise?

As synthetic biologists begin to construct increasingly complex gene regulatory networks, the need for accurate quantitative characterization of regulatory components becomes more pressing. Despite the extensive characterization of the average strength of the promoters available on the BioBrick registry, very few have information pertaining to the variability in their expression. Our project aims to characterize this variability, commonly referred to as stochasticity, or noise, in gene expression, for the most commonly used promoters in synthetic biology and provide additional tools for the regulation of these promoters.

Read more on our Project Description page.

Parts

Our team submitted 25 parts to the registry. You can browse these parts below by choosing a page below.

All Parts

A categorized list of all parts.

Part Collections

Guide RNAs for iGEMs top promoters.

Basic Part

Targeted repression with dCAS9.

Composite Part

An original integrator suite for the E. coli chromosome.

Measurement & Modeling

We measured noise in fluorescence data for dual-integrated sets of CFP and YFP under three promoters: BBa_R0010, BBa_R0011, and BBa_R0051. We also developed an analytic model of the impact of plasmid copy number fluctuations on transcriptional noise, which revealed that intrinsic noise cannot be accurately measured from reporters on the pSB1X3 plasmid series.

Data & Analysis

integrated/plasmid

Plasmid Fluctuation Model

parameters and stuff.

Human Practices

Our Human Practices effort was a multi-faceted outreach approach to science literacy, focusing specifically on spreading a basic understanding of synthetic biology to the general public. We collaborated with numerous organizations (logos below) to host nine educational Synthetic Biology workshops for the public (from first graders to adults!) and to implement our original, 24-activity Synthetic Biology curriculum into schools worldwide, to further sustain our efforts for years to come.

Adult Communication

Youth Education

Long-Term Sustainability