IGEM:MIT/2007/Updated Ideas
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Estrogen Biosensor
- some articles:
sticky project:
input:
- temperature (cold shock / heat shock promoters)
- light (either via light sensitive transcription/translation or photo-induced chemistry)
- cell growth (stationary phase, log phase)
- cell type (if growing different strains)
- metal ion (metal sensitive promoter)
- estrogen (ER binding domain)
- cre/lox recombination
parts:
- mussel peptide fused to circularly permuted OmpX (surface display protein, see Rice07)
- need tyrosine hydroxylase to convert tyrosine to L-DOPA (hydroxylation)? can also occur non-enzymatically (reversible)
- need tyrosinase to convert L-DOPA to DOPA-quinone (oxidation)? can also occur non-enzymatically (reversible) -- heavy metal ions (like copper) can catalyze...
- polystyrene peptide fused to OmpX
output:
- stick to specific surface (plastic, polystyrene, etc)
- stick nonspecifically (noncovalently) to surface (mussel peptide in reduced DOPA form)
- crosslink and stick (covalently) to surface and each other (mussel peptide in oxidized quinone form)
output apps:
- microbial biofilms/membranes
- bacterial photo-lithography (light-induced glueing)
- population separations
- sensor readout
- "Enhanced Bioaccumulation of Heavy Metal Ions by Bacterial Cells Due to Surface Display of Short Metal Binding Peptides"[4] Check out refs about bacteria that "bioprecipitate" heavy metal ions
articles on heavy metal adhesion:
Water Decontamination Application Example
- Water is collected from a river (or other source) into a filtration setup
- Bacteria is added to the water
- The bacteria bind to or take in metals or other pollutants (input 1: detection/uptake of pollutant)
- Input causes bacteria to be able to bind to the filter material (output 1: stickiness to filter material)
- The water is now pollutant-free
- The filter can be cleaned by rinsing/soaking it with water while shining light on it (input 2: light)
- This second input causes the bacteria to unbind from the filter material (output 2: loss of stickiness to filter material)