Team:RHIT/Project

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Project Description

Our team strived to create a symbiotic relationship between yeast and E. coli. E. coli was transformed with a system that utilizes a fusion gene of ice nucleation protein and alpha mating factor to express alpha mating factor on the surface of E. coli. This gives E. coli the ability to induce the yeast mating pheromone response pathway. Yeast utilizes FUS1 as the final signaling factor of the mating pheromone response pathway. Therefore, the FUS1 promoter enables histidine production within yeast. This means E. coli must interact with the yeast to allow for yeast's survival. For this to be a true symbiotic relationship, yeast must provide E. coli with something essential for survival. E. coli is able to survive in this system when yeast secretes lactate because the E. coli system requires lactate to promote histidine production. To test the E. coli for alpha mating factor expression, a system was developed for yeast. The FUS1 promoter was used again, but in this case to promote the expression of blue fluorescent protein within yeast. This system allows for visual confirmation that E. coli and yeast were able to interact using alpha mating factor and the mating pheromone response pathway.

Our team created Victor the Vector to aid in teaching the youth of the world about synthetic biology. Victor the Vector is a hands-on interactive device that allows students to build basic synthetic biological systems and watch instructional videos about the systems that were built. This enables students to experience building synthetic biology systems without the need for a wet lab or wet lab experience. This was done by modeling Victor the Vector as a plasmid that contains twelve slots in which different parts of a synthetic biological system can be placed. The user can then take the provided parts and plug them into Victor the Vector in the correct order to produce a viable synthetic biological system. This mimics how synthetic biologists take different genetic parts and put them together in a novel way in a plasmid. If the student inserts the correct pieces in the correct order, it will initiate an instructional video that the student can watch to learn more about the system. This gives students hands-on experience with building synthetic biological systems and a basic understanding of the necessary components and the order in which they need to be organized to create a synthetic biological system. By giving the students a device to play and interact with, they will gain a better appreciation and understanding of this nanoscale science.

The plug-in parts for Victor the Vector were created with a 3D printer that uses PLA (polylactic acid). PLA, a biodegradable polyester, is a polymer of lactic acid and comes from biological sources, such as corn starch. This is a desirable polymer for plastic products because it can be broken down and recycled into the environment. The scraps from the 3D printing were recycled back into lactic acid, for later wetlab use in E. coli media. This allowed for an efficient use of resources and a reduction in waste material.