Team:Warwick/Modelling2

Warwick iGEM 2015

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DNA Origami Glue

How it would work

This is how the E.coli will bond to the DNA Origami structures. We can choose what zinc fingers go on what end of the structures so we could have a pattern in the origami structure. This is useful for the previous problem for analysing microbial communities as it allows different cell types to be brought together.
It would be possible to create 2D and 3D structures using these Origami structures as a glue to hold the cells together but would require hundreds of different zinc fingers to prevent the wrong parts being bonded to one another.
This shows how a simple shape could be made by using E.coli (black squares) by connecting them with DNA origami (red crosses). In order for a shape to be made each piece of E.coli needs to express a different zinc finger so that it can only be bonded to a specific piece of origami (no non-specific bonding).
We only have four zinc finger which means that we don’t have many options for patterns we could make but given enough time and resources we could easily optimise more zinc fingers so more complex shapes could be made.

DNA Origami

This shows how the DNA strands come together. Three double stranded strings of DNA are denatured and then when slowly cooled will come together to form the Y shape. However after the denaturing each strand of DNA has an equal chance of bonding to the original piece of DNA as it does to the correct origami side. Therefore the more complex the structure the less likely it is that that structure will fully form.

Minimum Size of Plasmids

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Probability of Formation

As you can see the probability of a structure fully forming decreases exponentially as the complexity increases. However, even though for larger number of arms there is a very high chance of a structure forming it is unlikely for all the arms to form. Therefore, for our experiments it would be better to focus on using structures with fewer number of arms to save time and money.

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Design by Warwick iGEM 2015