Team:Exeter/Achievements

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Protocol 6

Achievements and Failures
  • Successfully cloned and submitted 14 biobricks into the registry
  • Obtained wbbC gene from BL21 genome
  • Created GlycoBase; a database containing a list of >100 glycosyltransferase enzymes from E.coli strains to demonstrate the vast linkages we could achieve only with E.coli enzymes
  • Created GlycoWeb, an interface for an online user to access Glycobase with a polysaccharide in mind and the database searches and finds the enzymes you’d use to make it.
  • Created GlycoApp; an application for a handheld device to access the Glycobase from wherever the consumer is when they realise they need a polysaccharide ordering!
  • Considered human practice approaches and discussed with several experts the human practice considerations, hosted a human practice panel and discussed with the wider community at Café Scientifique.
  • Discussed our project with various businesses including Shell, Ginsters etc. and we received letters of support from DSTL, ISCA Biochemical Ltd, Avon.
  • Demonstrated that….. Successfully expressed this polysaccharide….. (to be cont….)
  • Made promoter-RBS-gene-terminator constructs for each gene


  • A correct mass analysis of the product is essential, but cannot alone confirm the correct product. The possibility that an incorrect product has been made through incorrect synthesis or post-synthetic regiospecific or enantiospecific rearrangement by chemical or enzymatic means must be examined and ruled out before the method can be considered reliable.
  • Synthesis of a previously well characterised small polysaccharide, which can be physically and also biochemically characterised, to show that the product will act in biological systems as expected. Once a fully characterised polysaccharide is produced, we would be in a much stronger position to offer novel products and to start to address the exciting possibilities of our method.
  • Only managed to obtain 7 of 9 fragments for Gibson assembly through PCR.
  • Didn’t manage to construct operons through BioBrick assembly.