Thermonator III: The crop guardian

Our project is about a genetic engineered machine in E. coli with the ability to produce Vip3ca3 which acts as a pesticide protein. Vip3ca3 production will be regulated by specific temperatures in order to avoid overproduction and it will show activity against target organisms Coleoptera and Lepidoptera, which are related to a local problem concerning potato crops. The Vip3ca3 production is regulated with a constitutive promoter and a riboswitch that initiate translation around 32°C. Since we want to produce the Vip3ca3 below the 32°C, we use a set of promoter-repressors in order to invert the activation of the protein production. This model may be used as a regulator in future transgenic plant generations for the production of substances against plagues, avoiding pesticide overproduction, thus reducing the effect in Non-Target Organisms and bioaccumulation and can be used with different temperature ranges and/or different proteins to attack other target organisms.