Team:LA Biohackers/Project

Project Description

The Plan

We are using Bacillus subtilis as a backbone to incorporate the entire genome of Streptococcus thermophilus. Once incorporated, we will use the cre/lox recombination system to remove the Bacillus subtilis genome so only the Streptococcus thermophilus genome remains. This will demonstrate the use of Bacillus subtilis as a useful chassis to boot up an artificial genome.

As you may have guessed from the sly shift in tense from present to future, we did not actually succeed in transferring the entire genome of Streptococcus thermophilus into Bacillus subtilis -- yet. We have developed, and will describe, a method which we believe will enable us to do so, and the results we have obtained for the early steps in that method have been encouraging. We still believe it may be possible to accomplish our original goal, and will continue to pursue it in the weeks and months to come.

And so it begins...

Why S. Thermophilus and B. Subtilis?

The bacteria arrive.

We chose these model organisms for this project because they're both gram positive low G-C ratio Firmicutes.

Since we're attempting a biochemistry transplant, the fact that they're evolutionary cousins should help.

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1. Overall project summary
2. Project Details
3. Materials and Methods
4. The Experiments
5. Results
6. Data analysis
7. Conclusions

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