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From 2012.igem.org

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ABSTRACT

“Global warming is too serious for the world any longer to ignore its danger or split into opposing factions on it”, quoted Tony Blair back in 2005. Well how much concerning this appears, since then, a lot more similar quotes can be added in its reference. We have come together as a team to have a different insight in dealing with this problem through genetic engineering. Rice, which is the staple diet of India and many other countries around the world, is believed to engender many potential green house gases or global warming gases per se like carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide, again, is released due to the inevitable use of nitrogen fertilizers which are added in the paddy fields. We are dealing with the conversion of this highly potential global warming gas, nitrous oxide into nitrate form using synthetic biology tools to insert two genes into a bacterial cassette along with its detection systems. This nitrate, as we know, can in turn, be utilized by the plant itself, solving our purpose and adding a new dimension to this diversion and in turn being beneficial for the farmers reducing the compromise factor that would, otherwise, have been done.

Overall project

Synthetic biology aims to design and construct new biological functions and system that are not found in nature. We have given the name ‘Captain Green’ to our organism M.capsulatus who plays ‘hero’ like figure in providing the greener and healthy environment. Global warming has become an alarming issue in 21st century and we aim to take action against it. The tremendous increase in methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide emission has become a great concern. While rice has the third-highest worldwide production and a staple crop for nearly half the world's population with the worldwide consumption of ~367 million metric ton per year but anoxic conditions in the wetland soils of rice paddies are ideal for microbes that produce methane, which trails only carbon dioxide in terms of its greenhouse effect. Rice agriculture is a big source of atmospheric methane, possibly the biggest of man-made methane sources. With an increasing world population, reductions in rice agriculture remain largely untenable as on Methane emission reduction strategy. Methane emission from paddy field makes up 29% of the total of Methane and Nitrous Oxide emission from agricultural land makes up 55%. So, greenhouse gas emissions from rice paddy fields are considered as one of the most important emission sources. The average concentration of nitrous oxide in the atmosphere is now increasing at a rate of 0.2 to 0.3% per year. Methane and nitrous oxide are both potent greenhouse gasses, with global warming potentials approximately 25 and 298 times that of carbon dioxide.

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