Team:Penn/Overview

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<title>University of Pennsylvania iGEM</title>
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<a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:Penn"><li>Home</li></a>
 
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  <li>Project
 
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      <a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:Penn/Overview"> <li>Overview</li> </a>
 
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    <a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:Penn/Magnetism"> <li>Magnetism</li> </a>
 
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    <a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:Penn/Microbio"> <li>Microbiology</li> </a>
 
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    <a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:Penn/Synbio"> <li>SynBio in AMB-1</li> </a>
 
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    <a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:Penn/CdTolerance"> <li>Cadmium Tolerance</li> </a>
 
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  <li>Human Practices
 
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      <a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:Penn/Specsheet"><li>Spec Sheet</li></a>
 
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    <a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:Penn/Outreach"><li>Outreach</li></a>
 
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    <a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:Penn/Biomeme"><li>Biomeme</li></a>
 
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      <a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:Penn/Notebook"><li>Timeline</li></a>
 
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      <a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:Penn/Safety"><li>Safety</li></a>
 
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    <a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:Penn/Protocol"><li>Protocols</li></a>
 
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  <li>Team
 
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      <a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:Penn/Team"><li>About Us</li></a>
 
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    <a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:Penn/Sponsors"><li>Sponsors</li></a>
 
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<div style = "text-align: center; font-size: 24px;">Project Overview</div><br>
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<p>Synthetic biology is a rapidly evolving field creating foundational advances from bacterial biosensors generating chromoproteins to amazing strains capable of cleaning up radiation. Largely, these projects utilize the reliable “powerhouse” host cell of synthetic biology: E.Coli. This strain serves as a valuable chassis for most projects as it is well-characterized and relatively easy to transform. While E.Coli is undeniably important in synthetic biology, further expansion in the field could originate in characterization of rare strains of bacteria. Incorporating more arcane strains in research opens the field to take advantage of the biological diversity and unique attributes of bacterial organisms.
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<p>Synthetic biologists engineer organisms for impactful applications ranging from bacterial biosensors for disease diagnostics to microbial strains capable of cleaning up radiation. Largely, these projects utilize the reliable “powerhouse” host cell of synthetic biology: E.Coli. This strain serves as a valuable chassis for most projects as it is well-characterized and easy to transform with engineered DNA parts. If researchers could easily engineer rarer strains of bacteria and take advantage of their biological diversity, the field would open up to new applications that leverage the unique attributes of these unconventional chassis.  
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<p>This summer, we sought to explore a new chassis in the field of bioremediation, a waste management technique that involves the use of organisms to remove or neutralize a pollutant from a contaminated site. Previously, synthetic biologists used E.Coli to sequester from water. However, the strain can disrupt natural ecosystems if it is not filtered out properly and can be difficult to remove from the environment. We attempted to leverage the biological diversity of an uncharacterized strain Magnetospririllum magneticum AMB-1 to address this issue. This strain of magnetotactic bacteria aligns to a magnetic field by producing magnetite-accumulating organelles. AMB-1 was a natural choice in our search to make a comprehensive bioremediation tool that could be removed from a polluted water source along with the pollutant itself.  
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<p>We characterized a fascinating and underused organism: Magnetospirillum magneticum (AMB-1), a bacterium that aligns with magnetic fields. AMB-1 had previously been incorporated in very few publications. By developing, testing, and optimizing protocols for its growth and transformation, and then making them easily accessible in a convenient Strain Spec Sheet, we hope to establish AMB-1 as an easily engineered organism. We also tested and troubleshot the few genetic parts used in AMB-1 engineering, and then designed a new, BioBrick-compatible vector with an AMB-1 specific origin of replication, promoter, and multiple-cloning site. We are currently characterizing this vector, pMAGMA3.  
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<p>We chose to tackle AMB-1 bioremediation of cadmium, the second largest pollutant in water using the following four lanes of experimentation.  The first two categories address the characterization of AMB-1, while the final two focus in on its capabilities as a bioremediation tool.
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<p>In the future, AMB-1 has high potential for use in novel synthetic biology applications because of its capacity to align with magnetic fields.  We are especially interested in using AMB-1 for bioremediation applications, such as cleaning pollutants from water. Many engineered microbes can absorb pollutants, but if AMB-1 were used instead of E.Coli, it could be subsequently removed from the water with a magnet – effectively removing both the pollutant and the engineered microbe. To help prove this concept is feasible, we ran experiments to test that AMB-1 can survive in water polluted with the heavy metal, cadmium.  
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Latest revision as of 02:59, 18 October 2014

University of Pennsylvania iGEM

Synthetic biologists engineer organisms for impactful applications ranging from bacterial biosensors for disease diagnostics to microbial strains capable of cleaning up radiation. Largely, these projects utilize the reliable “powerhouse” host cell of synthetic biology: E.Coli. This strain serves as a valuable chassis for most projects as it is well-characterized and easy to transform with engineered DNA parts. If researchers could easily engineer rarer strains of bacteria and take advantage of their biological diversity, the field would open up to new applications that leverage the unique attributes of these unconventional chassis.

We characterized a fascinating and underused organism: Magnetospirillum magneticum (AMB-1), a bacterium that aligns with magnetic fields. AMB-1 had previously been incorporated in very few publications. By developing, testing, and optimizing protocols for its growth and transformation, and then making them easily accessible in a convenient Strain Spec Sheet, we hope to establish AMB-1 as an easily engineered organism. We also tested and troubleshot the few genetic parts used in AMB-1 engineering, and then designed a new, BioBrick-compatible vector with an AMB-1 specific origin of replication, promoter, and multiple-cloning site. We are currently characterizing this vector, pMAGMA3.

In the future, AMB-1 has high potential for use in novel synthetic biology applications because of its capacity to align with magnetic fields. We are especially interested in using AMB-1 for bioremediation applications, such as cleaning pollutants from water. Many engineered microbes can absorb pollutants, but if AMB-1 were used instead of E.Coli, it could be subsequently removed from the water with a magnet – effectively removing both the pollutant and the engineered microbe. To help prove this concept is feasible, we ran experiments to test that AMB-1 can survive in water polluted with the heavy metal, cadmium.


Magnetism of AMB-1 Microbiology in AMB-1 Synthetic Biology in AMB-1 Cadmium Tolerance in E. Coli vs. AMB-1
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