Team:RHIT/Project

Team RHIT aims to create a symbiotic relationship between yeast and E. coli. We transform E. coli with a system that utilizes a fusion gene of ice nucleation protein and alpha mating factor to express alpha mating factor on the surface of E. coli. E. coli will not have the ability to induce the mating pheromone response pathway within yeast. Yeast utilizes FUS1 as the final signaling molecule of the mating pheromone response pathway. Therefore, we use a FUS1 promoter to express histidine within yeast. This means that E. coli must have an interaction with the yeast to allow for yeast's survival. For this to be a true symbiotic relationship, yeast must provide E. coli with a means of survival. E. coli is able to survive in this system when yeast expels lactate because our E. coli system requires lactate to promote histidine expression within E. coli. To test our E. coli for alpha mating factor expression, we developed another system for yeast. Again, we use the FUS1 promoter expect in this case we promote the expression of blue fluorescent protein within yeast. This system allows us to again visually confirm that E. coli and yeast are able to interact using alpha mating factor and the mating pheromone response pathway.

The 2014 Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology iGEM team created Victor the Vector to aid in teaching the youth of the world about synthetic biology. Victor the Vector is a hands-on interactive device that allows students to build basic synthetic biology systems and watch instructional videos about the systems that were built. This way students can experience building synthetic biology systems without the need of a wet lab or any wet lab experience. This is done by modeling the shape and design of Victor the Vector as a plasmid which contains twelve slots in which different parts of a synthetic biology system can be placed. This way all the user has to do is take the provided parts and plug them into Victor the Vector in the correct order to produce a viable synthetic biology system. This is meant to mimic how synthetic biologists take different genetic parts and put them together in a novel way in a plasmid. If the student has plugged the correct pieces into Victor the Vector in the correct order, then it will initiate an instructional video which the student can watch to learn more about the system that he or she build. This way students can get a hands-on approach with building synthetic biology systems an a basic understanding of some of the components and the order in which parts need to be organized to create a synthetic biology system. Our hope is that by giving the students a device to play and interact with, they will gain a better appreciation and understanding of this nanoscale science.

The plug-in parts for Victor the Vector were created with a 3D printer that uses PLA (polylactic acid). PLA, a biodegradable polyester, is a polymer of lactic acid and comes from biological sources such as corn starch. This is desirable in a polymer for plastic products because it can be broken down and recycled into the environment. Our team used scraps from the 3D printing and recycled them back into lactic acid, which could then be used to grow the E coli in our system. This helped us to reduce our waste materials, and more efficiently use our resources.