Team:Peking

ptogenetic tools have made significant impact on life sciences and beyond. However, several serious issues remain: cytotoxicity, narrow dynamic range, and dependency on laser and exogenous chromophores. To unblock the bottleneck, Peking iGEM has rationally constructed an ultra-sensitive sensor of luminance -- <b style="color:#ffee55;"><i>Luminesensor</i></b>. Primarily, the sensor was designed by fusing the blue-light-sensing protein domain from <i>Neurospora</i> with the DNA binding domain of LexA from <i>E. coli</i>. Subsequently, protein structure inspection and kinetic simulation were conducted to rationally perform optimization. Amazingly, <i>Luminesensor</i> was proved to be so sensitive as to sense <b style="color:#ffee55;">natural light</b> and even <b style="color:#ffee55;">bioluminescence</b>. With this sensor, spatiotemporal control of cellular behavior, such as <b style="color:#ffee55;">high-resolution 2D</b> and <b style="color:#ffee55;">3D bio-printing</b> using dim light and even <b style="color:#ffee55;">luminescence of iPad</b> were shown to be very easy. What’s more, we successfully implemented <b style="color:#ffee55;">cell-cell signaling using light</b>, which is the very first time in synthetic biology and of great importance for biotechnological use.

3D printing is a new technology that has been rising for many years. But in the realm of synthetic biology, it is far from developed. We exploited our <i>Luminesensor</i> to implement 3D printing that can be utilized in many applications in medical or manufacturing.

"Phototatic" bacteria can be built by programming the chemotaxis system in <i>E. coli</i> through light. By controlling the expression level of the CheZ protein with <i>Luminesensor</i>, the tumbling frequency is coupled to the intensity of light signals.  

We have done a remarkable job in motivating high school students to study synthetic biology and guiding them towards future participation in the iGEM high school division. Besides, we collaborated with a lab and helped 4 other iGEM teams by sharing DNA materials, characterizing their parts and modeling. What's more, we presented all fresh iGEMers with a collection and praise of historic iGEM projects to share and learn from each other!

Excellent stochastic simulation was conducted to rationally optimize our ultrasensitive <i>Luminesensor</i>, combining protein kinetics and reaction thermodynamics. Molecular docking was also operated. What's more, while designing our photo-taxis model, we developed a hexagonal-coordinate environment for dynamic simulation of “on-plate" system. Those who focus on cell motility will find it useful and get inspired.