IGEM:MIT/2006/Notebook/2006-6-14

Applications Research

Light Sensor

The light sensing device is a combination of four parts, I15008, I15009, I15010, and R0082. The device is on the featured parts page below:

http://parts.mit.edu/registry/index.php/Featured_Parts:Light_Sensor

Also in the registry is M30109, which would make up strictly the light sensing device of the system. However, no physical DNA is listed as being present in this part's entry in the registry. The part description is below:

http://parts.mit.edu/registry/index.php/Part:BBa_M30109

Heat Sensor

There are two kinds of heat-sensitive promoters that are well described in openwetware: cold shock and heat shock promoters. Here is a description of some of them characterized by the UCSF team last year:

"Only four promoters (barely) survived the screen. By far, the best promoter is hybB, which controlls the hydrogenase II operon. It is clearly active at temperatures lower than 30oC and is off at temperatures higher than 30oC. Two other cold-shock promoters also showed a T-dependent response: ansB and cspA_x. AnsB controls an asparginase operon. CspA is part of the classical cold shock response. It's mRNA has a toxic leader, which is also supposed to participate in adaptation. We removed this sequence, which we denote with an 'x.' Finally, we have had mixed success with the heat-shock htpG promoter, which is part of the classical heat-shock response. It is known to produce a pulse first, but it is unique in that it (in the literature) comes to a T-dependent steady-state."

Although I did not find which parts they are in the registry, I am fairly certain that the parts are in the registry. This device would probably be the easiest to get working since the each device (cold sensor and hot sensor) merely consist of one part, a promoter.