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Team:ETH Zurich
From 2012.igem.org
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=== ''E.coli''pse – Who’s your pABA: intelligent sun protection === | === ''E.coli''pse – Who’s your pABA: intelligent sun protection === | ||
Revision as of 13:24, 26 September 2012
E.colipse – Who’s your pABA: intelligent sun protection
| E.colipse is an intelligent and adaptive sun radiation protection system which responds to UV exposure with the production of the protective agent pABA. To detect hazardous levels of sun radiation our system is based on UVR-8, a UV sensing protein from plants. In its dark state, this protein forms a homodimer that dissociates upon UV radiation. |
| We fused UVR-8 with the DNA binding domain from TetR, which is unable to dimerize and to bind DNA in monomeric form. UV-exposure might force the TetR-UVR8 fusion dimer to split, release the DNA and enable transcription. Thus, TetR-UVR8 might act as a light-activated on-switch in bacteria. |
| We plan to use this novel switch to start the production of para-aminobenzoic acid (pABA), a common ingredient of sunscreen, and - dependent on the intensity and duration of exposure as determined by our detailed in silico model - a colored pigment as a visible warning signal. |
