Welcome

Welcome to iGEM 2013 at BV CAPS Kansas!

The international oil industry drives our economy and very life of the world. However, this resource is dwindling and has detrimental effects on our atmosphere. In order to reduce oil usage and dependence, we will improve the efficiency of bio-fuels by manipulating the microbes used in their creation. One of the proposed biofuels is using alkanes to make biodiesel. They are useful because they float when the cell lysed and only needs to be dewatered. One way to produce alkanes is through Acetyl-CoA. Acetyl-CoA is synthesized by pyruvate. Pyruvate kinase converts phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) into pyruvate. Pyruvate kinase adds a phosphate group from PEP to ADP to yield ATP and pyruvate. Our iGEM project this year is to overexpress pyruvate kinase in cyanobacteria. To do this, we will insert a hyperactive pyruvate kinase from a rabbit muscle, yeast, or mutant cyanobacteria. This will increase the production of PEP greatly within the cyanobacteria. The excess PEP will then be used in the production of alkanes. Then, we will place the cyanobacteria in a low oxygen environment which will further suppress the usage of energy by limiting the electron transport chain. This energy would then be passed to the production of alkanes. Testing will be done with lipid extraction and profiling assay.