Team:Carnegie Mellon

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Contents 1 Introduction: Motivation 2 Primary Objective: A Useful BioBrick for Synthetic Biologists 3 Secondary Objective: Humanistic Practice 4 Further Considerations

Introduction: Motivation

• We seek to develop a BioBrick that will allow researchers in the field of synthetic biology to accurately measure a variety of metrics in gene expression networks including translational efficiency and transcriptional strength.

• We believe that we can use Spinach (a fluorescent RNA sequence) and a FAP (fluorogen activating protein) as biosensors to reflect these metrics in vivo, rather than in vitro, which has previously proven to be very costly and impractical.

• We will characterize the relationship between genetic expression of Spinach (upstream), a FAP (downstream), translational efficiency, and transcriptional strength.
  

Abstract/Introduction

Motivation question

Humanistic implications go here

What is Spinach?

Spinach is a green fluorescent RNA sequence that can be expressed in cells (in this case, E. coli ) that can be used to quantify RNA concentration in a cell. Spinach binds to an organic dye called DFHBI which doesn't fluoresce by itself but fluoresces very brightly when it is bound to Spinach. In our system, Spinach is incorporated in the mRNA (between the promoter and the RBS).

What is a FAP?

A fluorogen activating protein is a small (26-35kD) protein that derives from the variable region in an antibody. FAPs are not fluorescent unless a fluorogen (also not naturally fluorescent) is added, in which case the complex fluoresces very brightly. FAPs are currently used to tag certain proteins like actin or tubulin in mammalian cells. FAPs are not primarily expressed in E. coli although we have expressed certain FAPs in E. coli. The two main dyes that the current series of FAPs bind to are malachite green and thiazole orange; our construct uses a variant that binds to malachite green. FAPs are excellent reporters because they are small proteins that are soluble and have virtually no maturation time unlike traditional variants of GFP.

Primary Objective: A Useful BioBrick for Synthetic Biologists

We believe the development of this unprecedented BioBrick will help synthetic biologists in a variety of applications, for a variety of purposes such as the following:

1. Quantifying translational efficiency in vivo
2. Troubleshooting in expression strains
3. mRNA and protein localization
4. in vivo transcription rate analysis
5. Determining promoter strength in vivo
6. Determining in vivo mRNA and protein half-lives
7. Introducing a protein reporter that has virtually no maturation rate and is limited only by the very quick absorption rate of the fluorogen into the cell
8. Introducing a functioning mRNA reporter and measurement BioBrick
9. Providing a novel method to characterize current and future BioBricks
10. Developing methods to analyze gene expression networks in vivo without disrupting behavior by fusing our construct to other proteins.

Our proposed BioBrick is novel, and potentially very useful in practice.

Secondary Objective: Humanistic Practice

FAQ/Terminology in engineering Escherichia coli to monitor these variables via fluorescence. Find out more about Carnegie Mellon: (CMU Home Page).

As part of our project, we seek to intrigue high school students about synthetic biology and engineering. In this pursuit, we developed an electrical analog of our BioBricks to teach high school students about:

1. Biological systems and synthetic biology
2. Gene expression
3. How our BioBrick can be used as a measurement system.
4. How scientists tackle real-world problems using an interactive simulation that allows the use of our BioBrick and synthetic biological principles.

Further Considerations

In the pursuit of our project, as well as the biological aspects, we:

• Considered aspects of scale-up, including the ethical, legal and social implications of our BioBrick,
• Programmed a new piece of software for modeling our BioBrick to students,
• Developed and tested techniques for measuring translational efficiency and transcriptional strength,
• Participated in human practices demonstration and modeled our biological system using a programmable and interactive, electrical analog.