Even though rice is a staple crop for half of the world's population, it lacks many of the essential nutrients necessary for healthy living. Additionally, vitamins and minerals cannot be added directly to rice, because they are lost or destroyed in the processing of the grains. Three specific nutrients that have been observed to be lacking in many people's diets to the detriment of their health are vitamin B12, thiamine, and the amino acid lysine.
In order to address these problems, we aim to engineer protein supplements for rice. As white rice grains are almost exclusively made up of starch, these supplements will connect a starch-binding protein to combinations of a vitamin B12-binding protein, a thiamine-binding protein, and a lysine-rich protein. The use of the starch-binding protein will ensure that the nutrients we have chosen to add will adhere to the rice and remain bound even through its preparation. Ultimately, the goal is to transform these protein genes into rice plants, which can be distributed to and cultivated by the specific populations who need them. Successful expression of our team's supplements and successful adherence of the target nutrients to rice with the addition of the supplements will demonstrate that eventually, transgenic rice plants customized to bind a variety of nutrients are achievable.
In the process of creating this supplement, our team will also be improving a red fluorescent protein plasmid (PBca1020-r0040) to serve as an expression vector. The changes include the addition of a His tag, the introduction of new restriction digestion sites, and the replacement of the constitutive promoter (BBa_J23116) with a controlled promoter (BBa_K206000). This improved iGEM part can be used by teams in the future to efficiently and directionally add genes of their choice to a plasmid already designed to express RFP when induced with L-arabinose. Purification of the expressed proteins can also be performed more easily.
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