Team:Shenzhen SZMS

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Revision as of 08:12, 1 April 2013

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You are provided with this team page template with which to start the iGEM season. You may choose to personalize it to fit your team but keep the same "look." Or you may choose to take your team wiki to a different level and design your own wiki. You can find some examples HERE.

You MUST have the following information on your wiki:

a team description
project description
safety information (did your team take a safety training course? were you supervised in the lab?)
team attribution (who did what part of your project?)

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lab notebook
sponsor information
other information

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Example: 2013hs.igem.org/Team:Shenzhen_SZMS/Our_Pets

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Tell us more about your project. Give us background. Use this as the abstract of your project. Be descriptive but concise (1-2 paragraphs)	Your team picture
	Team Shenzhen_SZMS

Official Team Profile

Project

Project Discription

Nitrate (NO3-) and nitrite (NO2-) are chemical roots of nitric acid (HNO3) and nitrous acid (HNO2) respectively. They exist in the aquatic environment, the living organisms and artificial products, as pollutants, which can cause food poisoning, cancers or even death. It's important to detect and eliminate such chemicals with the efficient methods. Currently, several detection methods have already been in use but all are not entirely harmless. For example, granular Cd grains are recommended for the NO3- determination for fruits and vegetables because they are easy to make and recover, and can be used repeatedly. However, Cd cannot be recycled easily, and may cause additional pollution. So the goal of our project is to provide an efficient and a more environment friendly method of detecting nitrates/nitrites and we strive to design biosensors to avoid the disadvantages of traditional methods.

Our team is going to develop novel modular biosensors that enable cost-effective and on-site detection of nitrates/nitrites by using an Escherichia coli (E.coli) chassis. And our development toward the nitrates/nitrites sensor is based on the previous work of the UT Dallas 2010 and Cambridge 2009. Their aim was to enable E.coli to report the existence of nitrates/nitrites with green fluorescent protein (GFP), but we found several drawbacks of this biosensor. Firstly, the GFP reporter within the bacteria is not efficient enough to respond to the inducer so only dim green fluorescence can be detected. Also, this biosensor cannot be recycled for repeated usage because it does not have an efficient way to turn off the reporting process after the detection. Thus, our team aim to improve the biosensor.

We selected the PyeaR promoter as the initial part of biosensor, which is used to respond to nitrates and nitrites. In order to make a remarkable expression, we then plan to use a reporter gene, the CrtEBI, that, when synthesized, will lead the E. coli to release a specific pigment, lycopene, as the visible color to determine the existence of nitrates/nitrites. Simultaneously, we will incorporate another reporter, the banana odor enzyme (ATF1) generator, which enables our biosensor to produce an aroma of bananas with the existence of nitrates/nitrites. Therefore, our biosensor containing dual reporters may ensure a high accuracy in the detection of nitrates and nitrites. We also intend to build our biosensor to trigger the release of lipoxygenase to facilitate the degradation of the lycopene, which may enable the repeated usage of this biosensor.

Notebook

Show us how you spent your days.

Results/Conclusions

What did you achieve over the course of your semester?

Safety

What safety precautions did your team take? Did you take a safety training course? Were you supervised at all times in the lab?

Attributions

Who worked on what?

Human Practices

What impact does/will your project have on the public?

Fun!

What was your favorite team snack?? Have a picture of your team mascot?

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 ===Project Discription===
-Nitrate (NO3-) and nitrite (NO2-) are chemical roots of nitric acid (HNO3) and nitrous acid (HNO2) respectively. They exist in the aquatic environment, the living organisms and artificial products, as pollutants, which can cause food poisoning, cancers or even death.. So it's important  to detect and eliminate such chemicals with the efficient methods.. Several detection methods have already been in use but all are not entirely harmless. For example, granular Cd grains are easy to make and recover, and can be used repeatedly, so this procedure is recommended for the NO3- determination for fruits and vegetables. But Cd cannot be recycled easily, and may cause additional pollution. So we strived to design biosensors to avoid the disadvantages of traditional methods.
+Nitrate (NO3-) and nitrite (NO2-) are chemical roots of nitric acid (HNO3) and nitrous acid (HNO2) respectively. They exist in the aquatic environment, the living organisms and artificial products, as pollutants, which can cause food poisoning, cancers or even death. It's important to detect and eliminate such chemicals with the efficient methods. Currently, several detection methods have already been in use but all are not entirely harmless. For example, granular Cd grains are recommended for the NO3- determination for fruits and vegetables because they are easy to make and recover, and can be used repeatedly. However, Cd cannot be recycled easily, and may cause additional pollution. So the goal of our project is to provide an efficient and a more environment friendly method of detecting nitrates/nitrites and we strive to design biosensors to avoid the disadvantages of traditional methods.
-Our team is to develop novel modular biosensors that enable cost-effective and on-site detection of nitrates/nitrites by using an Escherichia coli chassis. And our development toward the nitrates/nitrites sensor is based on the previous work of the UT Dallas 2010 and Cambridge 2009. Since their aim is to enable E.coli to mark the existence of nitrates/nitrites with the GFP reporter, we found several drawbacks of this biosensor. Initially, the GFP reporter among the bacteria is not efficient enough to mark the inducer. It will only produce those green fluorescent protein with gloomy green light. Also, the process has been formed without any Recycling measures toward the proteins. Because of these shortages, our team thus aimed to find a possible replacement in order to reinforced the biosensor.
+Our team is going to develop novel modular biosensors that enable cost-effective and on-site detection of nitrates/nitrites by using an Escherichia coli (E.coli) chassis. And our development toward the nitrates/nitrites sensor is based on the previous work of the UT Dallas 2010 and Cambridge 2009. Their aim was to enable E.coli to report the existence of nitrates/nitrites with green fluorescent protein (GFP), but we found several drawbacks of this biosensor. Firstly, the GFP reporter within the bacteria is not efficient enough to respond to the inducer so only dim green fluorescence can be detected. Also, this biosensor cannot be recycled for repeated usage because it does not have an efficient way to turn off the reporting process after the detection. Thus, our team aim to improve the biosensor.
-First, we find the initial part of biosensor, which is the PyeaR promoter that used to bind with nitrates and nitrites, from the work of previous teams. Then, to make a remarkable expression, we plan to insert a reporter genes, the CrtEBI, that, when synthesized, will lead the E. coli to release a specific pigment, lycopene, as visible color to determine the existence of nitrates/nitrites. Simultaneously, we will add another reporter, the banana odor enzyme (ATF1) generator, which is capable to lead the production of an aroma of bananas with the presence of nitrates/nitrites. Also, if capable, we wish to build our new biobrick to trigger the release of a certain enzyme, which can produce lipoxygenase to help in the degradation of the lycopene.
+We selected the PyeaR promoter as the initial part of biosensor, which is used to respond to nitrates and nitrites. In order to make a remarkable expression, we then plan to use a reporter gene, the CrtEBI, that, when synthesized, will lead the E. coli to release a specific pigment, lycopene, as the visible color to determine the existence of nitrates/nitrites. Simultaneously, we will incorporate another reporter, the banana odor enzyme (ATF1) generator, which enables our biosensor to produce an aroma of bananas with the existence of nitrates/nitrites. Therefore, our biosensor containing dual reporters may ensure a high accuracy in the detection of nitrates and nitrites. We also intend to build our biosensor to trigger the release of lipoxygenase to facilitate the degradation of the lycopene, which may enable the repeated usage of this biosensor.
-The goal of our project is to provide an efficient and a more environment friendly method of detecting nitrates/nitrites.
-[[File:Overview of the biobricks.jpg]]
 ===Notebook===