User:W0iny

About Myself

Name: Iny Jhun E-mail: iny [at] mit [dot] edu

Start-up Genome Engineering

Protein	Function	Re-engineering Ideas
I & XI	assembly	The genes can be modified to be sensitive to the size and content of the material being secreted, in order to increase the quality and ensure viability of each product being excreted. This can be done by allowing communication (through chemical signaling, for example) to call for proteins necessary to make a finished product. For example, p3's may be missing and the product would get "stuck". Also, improving communication with p4 to resize the channel when necessary would quicken the export rate.
II	replication of DNA + strand	Test if increasing the attraction of host enzymes is beneficial to accelerate production of more double stranded phage DNA.
III	phage tail protein (5 copies)	This protein can be modified to change shape by sensing the membrane composition (chemical/structural) of the host to prepare itself for efficient infection.
IV	assembly	Allow communication with p1 and p11 to be more sensitive to size and content of material being exported.
V	binds ssDNA	One can test if allowing/increasing p5-p10 interaction optimizes the production of new phages.
VI	phage tail protein (5 copies)	Add the ability to extend or retract p3 by allowing communication (with p3) during infection.
VII & IX	phage head protein (5 copies)	Switch the order of p7 and p9 in its genome to learn about their differences in function in M13.
VIII	phage coat protein (2700 copies)	Mark its interaction with p5 to see how ssDNA is handed off before excretion.
X	DNA replication	As a regulatory protein, it can optimize how many double stranded DNA should be made by allocating how much DNA should be spent on making proteins for production or for the final product to carry. One can test if increasing p10's interaction with p5 optimizes the process.

Understanding of Biology of M13 - Question 2

• Would you expect the phage to tolerate p8 modifications that:

         o make the protein neutral rather than charged at the C-terminus?
           > No, because charge at the ends of proteins can be essential to its interaction with other proteins.
         o encode all Leucines with the CTA codon instead of the CTG codon?
           > I think it would depend on the context of the codons. If one is statistically more predominant than the other, then it may be an indication that a particular gene may have a preference. And so this would require an overall inspection of all the Leucine codons in the gene.
         o double the size of the protein? Justify your answers. Please assume that the p8 modifications do not destabilize the protein itself. 
           > This may limit the ability of the finish product to exit through the channels (p4, p1, p11). 

• Would you expect the phage to tolerate these same modifications to p3?

           > The answers are essentially the same, except it is more detrimental for p3's structure to be modified either in size or at the C-terminus. 

• Would you expect the phage to tolerate transcriptional terminators that are

         o 2X stronger - Yes. The materials and means for production may be limited, but still tolerable.
         o 100X stronger - No. If any one of the components are missing, production would shut down.
         o 2X weaker - Yes. A more disorderly working environment would still be tolerable.
         o 100X weaker -  No, because disorder can cause a traffic jam or crash in the system.

M13 Relatives - Question 3

Nature often preserves functionally critical genomic elements, and evolutionary cousins can help us identify which genetic elements are disposable, which are interchangeable, and which are essential. Who are M13's closest evolutionary relatives and how do they differ from the phage you're working with?

• Two of M13's closest evolutionary relatives are Lambda phages and T4. They differ in their life cycles, target infection area of E.Coli, and specific means of replicating DNA. The Lambda phage goes through both lysogenic and lytic lifecycles where as T4 is lytic, and M13 is lysogenic. They differ in what structure of E.Coli they infect. Lambda phages bind to a receptor protein, whereas the M13 infects the f-pilus of E.Coli. Also, Lambda phages integrate its DNA into the host genome where as T4 or M13's do not. Although there are differences, these stem from common goals. There are at least three (common) goals that seem essential: infection/entrance, synthesis, and reproduction. And so these point to genomic elements that are essential, while varieties of methods that achieve these three goals are interchangeable, and I would expect disposable genetic elements to be eliminated to make the genome as concise as possible.