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Team:DTU-Denmark
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At the Giant Jamboree, we received a gold medal and an Interlab Study Award. We also won the Overgrad Best Parts Collection.
Welcome
Our Project
At the DTU iGEM team 2014, we have found that characterization of one of the most central tools is missing - genetic promoters are largely uncharacterised. Because of their importance in all synthetic biology systems, it is vital that promoter strength can be characterized in detail. Today, promoters are often used without prior characterization, sometimes based on a qualitative and relative assessment of their activity. In cases where promoters are characterized, including the iGEM Registry of Parts, a relative characterization has been used. However, relative characterizations have several major drawbacks, including lack of generalization.
During our project we seek to develop a convenient, fast and reliable method for measuring absolute promoter activities using the Spinach technology. This method relies on fluorescently tagging RNA molecules called “Spinach”. By means of the Spinach concept, we will measure the concentration of the RNA product from different promoters and use this to calculate the transcription rate of the promoters. Using standard references in our measurements will even allow us to calculate transcription rates in units of Polymerases Per Second (PoPS), which is regarded as the optimal promoter activity measure.
