We began our project by identifying a range of BioBrick parts present in the iGEM 2014 distribution kit which we thought would prove useful to our project. These parts primarily consisted of both constituitive and inducible promoter systems with ribosome binding sites which we could then use in conjunction with our azo-reductase BioBricks to assemble a functional azo dye degrading gene. We also decided that we would use the Red Florescent Protein expresing BioBrick as a control for any further transformation experiments. As the level of DNA present within each plate of the distribution kit is insufficient to perform digest and ligation reactions on it was necessary to transform each of these plasmids into our NEB5alpha competent cells. After growing our transformed cells overnight we then mini-prepped each of them to obtain plasmid concentrations at suitable levels for future experiments
Experiment 2: Transforming E. coli with Azo-reductase plasmids