Even though rice is a staple crop for half of the world's population, it lacks many of the essential nutrients necessary for healthy living. Additionally, vitamins and minerals cannot be added directly to rice, because they are lost or destroyed in the processing of rice. Three specific nutrients that have been proven to be lacking in many people's diets to the detriment of their health are vitamin B12, thiamine, and the amino acid lysine.
In order to address these problems, we aim to engineer protein supplements for rice. As white rice grains are almost exclusively made up of starch, these supplements will combine a starch-binding protein with combinations of a vitamin B12-binding protein, a thiamine-binding protein, and a lysine-rich protein. This will ensure that the nutrients we have chosen to add will remain bound to the rice even through its preparation. Ultimately, the goal is to transform these genes into rice plants, which can be distributed to and cultivated by the specific populations who need them. Successful expression of our team's supplements will demonstrate that eventually, transgenic rice plants customized to bind a variety of nutrients are achievable.
In the process of creating this supplement, our team will also be improving a red fluorescent protein plasmid from a former iGEM team to serve as an expression vector. This improved part can be used by iGEM teams in the future to easily, efficiently, and directionally add genes of their choice to a plasmid already designed to express RFP, which can be used to visibly check for expression.
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