Team:NYMU-Taipei/ymivenusianintro.html

Introduction

Cyanobacteria obtain their energy by photosynthesis. In previous research in our study, we hope to create new type Synechococcus elongatus PCC7942 which could do both the nitrogen and sulfide metabolism. This new cyanobacteria would survive on the SO2-rich environment on the Venus. Meanwhile,when engineered with invasin(inv) from Yersiniapestis and listeriolysin O(llo) from Listeria monocytogenes (both provided by Pamela A. Silver, Harvard Medical school), S. elongates was able to invade cultured mammalian cells.

J774 mouse macrophage cell line, a kind of differentiate cells, could engulf cyanobacteria not only by phagocytosis but speedy by the inv-llo engineering help. Additionally, stem cells can divid and differentiate into diverse specialized cell types and can self-renew to produce more stem cells.  In a developing embryo, stem cells can differentiate into all the specialized cells (called pluripotent cells). Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells ) are stem cell-like cells derived from reprogrammed somatic cells. IPS cells are then seeded on mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF) feeder cells and cultured in ES cell medium. After separation iPS cells from MEF, non-EB iPS cells can be gotten. After culturing non-EB iPS cells on the petri dish, iPS cells at Embryoid Body(EB) stage can be obtained. Embryoid Body (EB) culture is used to examine the differentiation potential of the embryonic stem (ES) cells.

Thus, if engineered cyanobacteria can invade into stem cells and produce energy and O2 by photosynthesis, a dream of creating Venusians would not be far.