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Team:Lethbridge Canada
From 2013hs.igem.org
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Contents |
Team
Tell us about your team, your school!
Project
Oxytocin is a hormone produced in the pituitary gland that plays a major role in relationships, social bonding, pregnancy and childbirth. Chemically synthesized Oxytocin is available as a prescription to induce labour and treat post-partum hemorrhage. However, many properties of Oxytocin are still unknown.
When released, Oxytocin has a half-life of 5-10 minutes, making it difficult to study. It is normally bound to a precursor protein, Neurophysin I, which stabilizes Oxytocin and prevents degradation. This precursor complex is cleaved by an enzyme known as Neuroendocrine convertase I.
Our goal is to produce the Neurophysin-oxytocin complex and Neuroendocrine convertase I in Escherichia coli. We will create two separate constructs, one coding for the Neurophysin-oxytocin complex and the other coding for the cleavage enzyme. We will express these constructs in separate cultures and purify them. We will then test the efficiency of the cleaving enzyme and optimize the E. coli system to produce the minimal necessary amount of enzyme. Our “naturally” produced Oxytocin will then be compared to the synthetically made Oxytocin for chemical properties and cost effectiveness of production.
The Neurophysin-oxytocin construct will be maximally expressed in order to acquire an effective amount of protein to test. The construct containing Neuroendocrine convertase I will be produced in constructs containing varying efficiency promoters.
Notebook
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Results/Conclusions
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Safety
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Attributions
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Human Practices
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Fun!
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