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Team:York/Project
From 2014.igem.org
Our project
Both cadmium and sulfates can create serious problems both to the environment and human health. Both can also be found in high concentrations in industrial output. This year, our project at iGEM York is focusing on increasing the uptake of sulfate in E. coli in order to chelate cadmium ions. The project has two main, interlinked approaches:
Firstly, the increased uptake of sulfur using an exogenous sulfate transporter from Bacillus.
Secondly the increased uptake and chelation of cadmium ions by metal binding proteins, to produce a potentially harvestable metal product.
The link between these two processes is phytochelatins; the sulfur rich metal binding proteins which will be used to chelate our cadmium ions.
Our system is regulated by the metal concentration in the environment. If the concentration reaches the threshold of our cadmium inducible promoter (pYoda) sensitivity then it will activate the whole system. Thus, our system prevents the overproduction of cysteine when Cadmium is not found at high concentrations.
