Team:HIT-Harbin/Project

Overview

How to detect dioxins among the environment rapidly, with high-end HRGC-MS, or CALUX? This year, HITGEM brings you the new bio-machine – Dioxin Detective Y. For the letter Y, it means yeast. But how can the bacteria which have been manipulated for thousands of years before, detect the new poison which did not emerge until post-industrial era in a rapid way?

In the gene pool of mouse, there exists sequence, say, mouse dioxin receptor 83-805 (mDR83-805), that can express the receptor of dioxin-Heat shock protein (hsp90). We can obtain the receptor hsp90 by modifying this sequence and transform it into yeasts. This dual domain protein can pass through the karyotheca and combine with DNA only after unite with dioxin. After the combination with DNA, it will activate the expression of the downstream sequences. Together with positive feedback, this device can detect the small amount of dioxin in the environment.