Team:LMU-Munich/Why Beadzillus

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Revision as of 11:33, 25 October 2012

The LMU-Munich team is exuberantly happy about the great success at the World Championship Jamboree in Boston. Our project Beadzillus finished 4th and won the prize for the "Best Wiki" (with Slovenia) and "Best New Application Project".

[ more news ]

Why Beadzillus?

The use of filters in every day life as well as in the lab is widespread. There are Brita filters to filter chalk and other contaminants out of drinking water as well as for showers. In the lab filters are used for DNA purification or protein purification. All of the filters are filled with some matices which determine the function of the filter. To maximize the surface in a miminal volume, beads are commonly applied in any kind of filters. These microbeads have a certain size and can display protein on their surface for functional use of them. Then the feature of the protein characterize the characteristics of the filter. The coupling of proteins to the beads is based on affinity binding, for example nickle NTA-tags where the protein which carrys the histidin tag binds to the nickel ion.Several companies offer such microbeads with proteins coupled to their surface by using affinity tags.

These beads are usually very expensive, the production is more labourious as the protein has to be expressed, bound to the beads and then washed again, and the binding of the protein is non-covalent. For this problem, we want to offer a synthetic biology solution in our project BEADzillus where we produced biological beads.

But what are these biological beads made of? Based on a clever thing, evolution developedSo we thought of naturally produced biological beads which should have about the same size and be very stable. Then they should also be very cheap, the beads should directly express the protein on their surface with a stable peptide binding. Also the problem of disposal would disappear as you can burn the whole organic material. We found these biological beads with all the requirements in the spores of the soil bacteria Bacillus subtilis. Under nutrient limitation B. subtilis produces endospores which can resist environmental harsh conditions.

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Bacillus Intro	Bacillus BioBrickBox	Sporobeads	Germination STOP

Retrieved from "http://2012.igem.org/Team:LMU-Munich/Why_Beadzillus"

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-The use of filters in every day life as well as in the lab is widespread. To enlarge the surface per volume in the filter beads are commonly applied. These microbeads have a certain size and their surface feature characterizes the filter. Proteins have features (binding or enzyme reaction) which can be used if they are bound to the beads. Several companies offer such microbeads with proteins coupled to their surface by using tags.
+The use of filters in every day life as well as in the lab is widespread. There are ''Brita'' filters to  filter chalk and other contaminants out of drinking water as well as for showers. In the lab filters are used for DNA purification or protein purification. All of the filters are filled with some matices which determine the function of the filter. To maximize the surface in a miminal volume, beads are commonly applied in any kind of filters. These microbeads have a certain size and can display protein on their surface for functional use of them. Then the feature of the protein characterize the characteristics of the filter. The coupling of proteins to the beads is based on affinity binding, for example nickle NTA-tags where the protein which carrys the histidin tag binds to the nickel ion.Several companies offer such microbeads with proteins coupled to their surface by using affinity tags.
 <br>
 <br>
-These beads are usually out of poly styrene, are quiet expensive because in an additional working step the proteins have to be coupled to the surface. Also the proteins could become loose as they are not stably bound to the beads. In addition there is the problem of disposal of these anorganic beads.
+These beads are usually very expensive, the production is more labourious as the protein has to  be expressed, bound to the beads and then washed again, and the binding of the protein is non-covalent. For this problem, we want to offer a synthetic biology solution in our project '''BEAD'''zillus where we produced biological beads.
 <br>
 <br>
-So we thought of naturally produced biological beads which should have about the same size and be very stable. Then they should also be very cheap, the beads should directly express the protein on their surface with a stable peptide binding. Also the problem of disposal would disappear as you can burn the whole organic material.
+But what are these biological beads made of? Based on a clever thing, evolution developedSo we thought of naturally produced biological beads which should have about the same size and be very stable. Then they should also be very cheap, the beads should directly express the protein on their surface with a stable peptide binding. Also the problem of disposal would disappear as you can burn the whole organic material.
 We found these biological beads with all the requirements in the spores of the soil bacteria Bacillus subtilis. Under nutrient limitation B. subtilis produces endospores which can resist environmental harsh conditions.