Team:CityU HK/project/overview

From 2014.igem.org

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<h1> Overview </h1><br>
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<h1 id="title"> Overview </h1>
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<p class="content">Obesity is a worldwide problem that contributes to various human diseases and decreases the self-esteem of many people. Traditional remedies such as dieting or over-exercising often depress oneself, as it is no news that they take a lot of unpleasant effort. We aim to alleviate the problem with the least effect to one’s quality of life, therefore we genetically engineered an Escherichia coli strain that takes up fat from our diet and converts it into useful ALA (linolenic acid), and we name the bacteria “Fit Coli”. <br><br>
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Fit Coli does its job in four steps. The first step is to take up free fatty acids from the guts into the periplasm present between the two membranes of the cell wall. It is achieved by the overexpressed fatty acid transporter protein, FadL. <br><br>
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Second, the fatty acids need to be transported across the inner membrane into the cytosol. This is done by fatty acyl-CoA synthetase, FadD. This enzyme adds a coenzyme A (CoA) moiety to the fatty acids and then transfers the resulting acyl-CoA into the cytosol across the inner membrane.<br><br>
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In the third step, TesA, an acyl-CoA thioesterase, removes the CoA moiety from acyl-CoA. Therefore the uptaken molecule restores back to its free fatty acid form. This diverts the molecule from undergoing beta-oxidation.<br><br>
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Lastly, the free fatty acids are then converted into Lunder the catalysis of the three engineered enzymes, ∆9 desaturase, ∆12 desaturase and ∆15 desaturase.<br><br>
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      <p>Obesity has now reached epidemic proportions worldwide, which has serious consequences because obesity is associated with various chronic human diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases. With the aim to protect oneself against obesity and debilitating diseases caused by a high-fat diet, we are using a synthetic biology approach to design an Escherichia coli strain (called Fit Coli) that has an enhanced ability to uptake and convert excess fatty acids from fatty foods into a-linolenic acid (ALA). The strategy is to engineer the fadL and fadD genes along with three desaturase genes to facilitate the uptake of long-chain fatty acids and their biotransformation to ALA by the “Fit Coli” strain. It is predicted that the ALA converted from excess fatty acids by Fit Coli is converted to docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an omega-3-fatty acid, in the human gut, which is well known to have many positive health benefits.<p>
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In conclusion, Fit Coli can initially uptake stearic acid, oleic acid and linoleic acid present in our food, and convert them into ALA, which can then be used by our body.<br><br> </p>
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Revision as of 14:18, 6 October 2014

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Overview


Obesity is a worldwide problem that contributes to various human diseases and decreases the self-esteem of many people. Traditional remedies such as dieting or over-exercising often depress oneself, as it is no news that they take a lot of unpleasant effort. We aim to alleviate the problem with the least effect to one’s quality of life, therefore we genetically engineered an Escherichia coli strain that takes up fat from our diet and converts it into useful ALA (linolenic acid), and we name the bacteria “Fit Coli”.

Fit Coli does its job in four steps. The first step is to take up free fatty acids from the guts into the periplasm present between the two membranes of the cell wall. It is achieved by the overexpressed fatty acid transporter protein, FadL.

Second, the fatty acids need to be transported across the inner membrane into the cytosol. This is done by fatty acyl-CoA synthetase, FadD. This enzyme adds a coenzyme A (CoA) moiety to the fatty acids and then transfers the resulting acyl-CoA into the cytosol across the inner membrane.

In the third step, TesA, an acyl-CoA thioesterase, removes the CoA moiety from acyl-CoA. Therefore the uptaken molecule restores back to its free fatty acid form. This diverts the molecule from undergoing beta-oxidation.

Lastly, the free fatty acids are then converted into Lunder the catalysis of the three engineered enzymes, ∆9 desaturase, ∆12 desaturase and ∆15 desaturase.

In conclusion, Fit Coli can initially uptake stearic acid, oleic acid and linoleic acid present in our food, and convert them into ALA, which can then be used by our body.



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