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Team:SCUT-China/Satety
From 2014.igem.org
Safety
Safety
general lab safety
A solid foundation of wetlab is good laboratory practice. The best starting point for this purpose are personal safety precautions, such as gloves and lab coat. of course, is to be autoclaved. This should prevent any contamination of the environment with our bioactive material.
Besides this, a division of the lab into different areas is crucial. We designated separate areas for documentation, which of course did not happen on the benches, for lab-work, where we also worked with genetically modified bacteria and an ethidiumbromide-area where we could perform gel-electrophoresis and gel-analysis.
| Species name (including strain) |
Risk Group | Disease risk to humans? |
| E. coli(K12)BL21 | 1 | Yes. May cause irritation to skin, eyes, and respiratory tract, may affect kidneys. However, E.coli is not considered a human or animal pathogen nor is it toxicogenic. |
| E. coli(K12) TOP10 | 1 | Yes. May cause irritation to skin, eyes, and respiratory tract, may affect kidneys. However, E.coli is not considered a human or animal pathogen nor is it toxicogenic. |
| E. coli(K12) DH5alpha | 1 | Yes. May cause irritation to skin, eyes, and respiratory tract, may affect kidneys. However, E.coli is not considered a human or animal pathogen nor is it toxicogenic. |
| Saccharopolyspora erythraea | 1 | No |
| Bacillus subtilis 168 | 1 | No |
List and description of all new or modified coding regions we used
Part number/name
What species does this part originally come from?
Risk Group
Natural function of part
How will you use it?
BBa_K1371000(PKS)
Saccharopolyspora erythraea
1
Produce the macrolide antibiotic erythromycin
This part produces the macrolide antibiotic which our promoter is designed to detect
BBa_K1371011(sfp)
Bacillus subtilis 168
1
Code for PPTase
This part is code for PPTase which can activate ATP
BBa_K1371012(birA)
E. coli(K12) BL21
1
Code for biotin ligase
Enhance the activity of pccB upon coexpression
BBa_K1371013 (pccB)
Streptomyces coelicolor
1
carboxyl transferase, β subunit of pcc
This part produces the propionyl-CoA with combination of accA
BBa_K1371014 (accA)
Streptomyces coelicolor
1
acetyl-CoA carboxylase, biotinylated α subunit of pcc
This part produces the propionyl-CoA with combination of pccB
BBa_K1371016--BBa_K1371021 (docking domain1--6)
Streptomyces coelicolor
1
Code for docking domain which is required efficient transfer of polyketide intermediates between polypeptides
efficient transfer of polyketide intermediates between polypeptides
Do the biological materials used in our lab work pose any of the following risks?
Every species we worked with belongs to BL1. They do no harm to human. Experimenters is careful not to release any parts to the public. And even the worst situation happens as it is released, it will hardly bring risks.
a)Risks to the safety and health of team members, or other people working in the lab:
Yes. May cause irritation to skin, eyes, and respiratory tract, may affect kidneys. However, E.coli is not considered a human or animal pathogen nor is it toxicogenic. Any concerns for E.coli in terms of health considerations are mitigated by its poor ability to colonize the colon and establish infections.
b) Risks to the environment (from waste disposal, or from materials escaping from your lab):
The plasmids we designed cannot function outside certain cell lines in the laboratory, And the cell we used is very fragile and it will soon die leaving the culture medium. So it will not bring contamination to the environment.
c) Risks to security through malicious mis-use by individuals, groups, or countries:
All the biological materials used in our lab are safe, and all the products of the coding sequences are innocuous to human, so the risk of malicious misuse is low.
A regular safety briefing and a lecture about the basics concerning of biotechnology and genetic engineering are basic elements of our education at the SCUT.
The handling of biological material and safety aspects of chemicals are explained.
A safety briefing was held for all iGEM students by Zhenwu Zhang who is the responsible person for our lab safety.
Risks of Your Project in the Future
a) What new risks might arise from your project's growth? (Consider the categories of risk listed in parts a-d of the previous question: lab workers, the general public, the environment, and malicious mis-uses.) Also, what risks might arise if the knowledge you generate or the methods you develop became widely available?
If our design works and is introduced into a commercial/industrial product, it means the E.coli which can product polyketide will be immune to certain pathogens. This might exert pressure on the survival of these pathogens. Also, pathogen-resistant E.coli would threaten the survival of natural E.coli.
b) Does your project currently include any design features to reduce risks? Or, if you did all the future work to make your project grow into a popular product, would you plan to design any new features to minimize risks? (For example: auxotrophic chassis, physical containment, etc.) Such features are not required for an iGEM project, but many teams choose to explore them.
The plasmids we designed cannot function outside certain cell lines in the laboratory, And the cell we used is very fragile and it will soon die leaving the culture medium. So it will not bring contamination to the environment.
