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Team:Groningen
From 2014.igem.org
Starting in 2008 the University of Groningen has attended the iGEM (international Genetically Engineered Machine) competition every year. This year the team of Groningen is making a bandage containing Lactococcus lactis. L. Lactis is generally known as the lactic acid producing bacterium used in the food industry such as in the production of yoghurt. This bacterium is able to protect the wound against several bacteria that can cause painful infections in burn wounds.
Infections in burn wounds are currently only treatable with antibiotics. An increase in antibiotic resistance makes it harder every day to fight these bacteria. In our system L. Lactis produces a so-called lantibiotic, nisin. Nisin is effective against about half of all bacteria species and resistance against nisin is hardly ever found and if found, the resistance does not last.
Beside nisin the L. lactis will be able to produce AiiA and DspB. AiiA will disrupt the communication mechanism of the harmful bacteria, this way the bacteria will not cause any trouble because it 'thinks' it is alone. DspB is a molecule that prevents the harmful bacteria to form a layer (biofilm) on the wound. Additionally we want to try to make the bandage 'active' (producing nisin, DspB and AiiA) only when harmful bacteria are present in the wound. The bandage targets Staphyolococcus Aureus and Pseudomonas Aeruginosa specifically, two bacteria that are a problem in burn wound centres.
The design of the bandage is important as well. L. lactis should not be able to get out of the bandage, but the anti-microbial molecules should be able to reach the wound. Besides containing L. Lactis the bandage should allow sufficient oxygen to reach the wound.
Finally, the whole package needs to be able to be stored for quite a while and still work. Therefore L. lactis will be stored as a powder and can be activated with water when the bandage is needed.
We are also investigating the possibilities of having L. Lactis produce growth factors to aid in wound healing and to link the detection to the production of a chromoprotein to show when the bandage detects harmful bacteria.
