Missouri S&T iGEM

Coal produces a significant portion of global power, but also of pollution. Nitrogen oxides, formed and released into the atmosphere by coal burning, deplete the ozone layer and oxidize in air to form acid rain. The ozone layer absorbs the vast majority of ultraviolet radiation from the sun, shielding organisms on the surface from these destructive, cancer-causing rays. After extreme depletion, regulation and responsible practices have the ozone layer slowly recovering, but our ability to affect and harm the environment is now more apparent than ever. Similarly, human contributions to acid rain have been attributed to aquatic ecosystem destruction, soil spoiling, and structure corrosion. Nitric oxides themselves cause numerous respiratory symptoms.

Our Project

We aimed to genetically modify Cyanothece to allow it to remove all forms of nitrogen oxides from coal flue gases. Fixing nitrogen through Cyanothece not only prevents these harmful compounds from being introduced to the atmosphere, but produces ammonia compounds as end products. Ammonia is an essential part of fertilizer, providing a path to offset costs of cleaning emissions. We standardized these nitrogen fixing genes and added them to the BioBrick Parts Registry for use by other synthetic biologists, hoping that our work is the first step to eliminating nitrogen oxide pollutants from coal exhaust.