Project

The primary goal of this project is to aid CO2-capturing efforts by developing a chemically inducible gene expression system for the photosynthesizing cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC6803, and using it to increase the rate of carbon fixation in the bacterium.

This basic platform could then be used to offset CO2 emissions at a higher rate than the naturally occurring organism.

Detailed project description

During the course of this project, our team will construct a new BioBrick that allows chemically inducible expression of transgenes in Synechocystis sp. PCC6803.

The new BioBrick will incorporate DNA sequences from four existing BioBricks, in addition to sequences from the Synechocystis sp. PC6803 genome.

We will use metabolic modelling methods such as Flux Balance Analysis to identify bottlenecks in pathways involved with carbon fixation. Once bottlenecks are identified, we will look for high throughput orthologs of the genes corresponding to the identified bottlenecks, and include these in our BioBrick. Finally, the BioBrick carrying high throughput orthologs will be transformed into Synechocystis sp. PC6803 cells to increase their carbon fixation rate.

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