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Team:Valencia/other microalgae
From 2012.igem.org
Other Microalgae
Our aims go beyond building the most efficient photosynthetic biolamp, into trying to develop more robust and simple designs based on bioluminescent vascular plants. These kind of biolamps would be less energy-efficient, due to the lower surface-volume quotient and amount of structural carbon, but would be much easier to transport, manage, upkeep and commercialize. Vascular plants are robust organisms with a wider tolerance to changes in environmental conditions and independent of a broth vessel and complex tube systems (as they have their own biological structures for this function - xylems and phloems).
-In first place, we would test of luminescence of S. elongatus WT with psbA-luxAB as grown broth biolamp, to assess the magnitude of the problem of pigment shading of luminescence.
The next step would be the transformation of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii’s chloroplast with the lux cassette under regulation of psbA promoter (ligation including psbA-RBS-luxABCDE-Ter). These eukaryotic microalgae have a large chloroplast with prokaryote-like genetic system. Need for homologous recombination and DNA-pistol to insert our construct into the chloroplast.
This opens the way for further research on eukaryotic chloroplast transformation that can lead to the development of glowing trees on boulevards (see Team Cambridge 2011).
-The last experimental step would be the transformation of Tobacco plant cell with psbA-lux cassette and development of a protoplast. The protoplast can be grown into a callus, from which we can finally obtain a bioluminescent plant.
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