Team:Goettingen

Welcome to iGEM Göttingen

In November 2011, most of us heard about iGEM for the first time. Erik, who was new at the university of Göttingen, told us about the enthusiastic reports from his former colleagues, and that he was looking for like-minded people that were willing to organize a whole project with the topic of Synthetic Biology. He explained the idea of the contest to anybody who was willing to listen. It did not take long to find five other interested students and thus the so called organization task force of the first iGEM Team of the University of Göttingen was alive.

Luckily, the iGEM contest was already known well by the University´s professors and the team found his first supporters: Prof. Heinz Neumann, leader of the department for Synthetic Biology, and Prof. Jörg Stülke from the department of General and Applied Microbiology. The next task was, of cause, the hunt for a project that was interesting as well as realizable. After a lot of back and forth, Prof. Neumann presented the perfect project: the Homing Coli!

After many drawbacks, like finding a suitable laboratory to realize the project, the search for additional team members began The new fellows were found quickly, which was the story starting point of the first iGEM Team of the University of Göttingen…

If you are interested in the iGEM contest, the biobrick system, and – most important – our project, tak Here, you will find everything you need to know about “The Homing Coli” and you will have the opportunity to gather knowledge about chemotaxis in general!

Visit our team member site to learn more about the us, the iGEM Team Göttingen and about our supporters and advisors! And, last but not least, do not forget our mascot “Flash Coli”! He always has some interesting stories to tell and needs you help to fight against the horrible phages!

See you around!

You have not heard about iGEM yet? Click here to read about the competition.

Homing Coli

Escherichia coli is a commonly used bacterial model organism. It has lots of beneficial traits, e.g. a short generation time and it can be easily manipulated. Most E. coli strains that are used in laboratories do not exhibit high motility. The crucial element for motility is the flagellum, which is rotated by a molecular motor within the cell wall. Consequently, these are reduced in cultivated E. coli strains.

Our goal is to create an E. coli strain with increased swimming motility on special agar plates. Therefore, we will overexpress regulators and parts of the E. coli flagellum in cultivated strains in order to enhance bacterial swimming ability. The fastest E. coli strains will be selected and further improved. At the same time we will then be able to create an effective motility-selection method.

Now, you are probably wondering what the advantage of a fast E. coli might be. The beneficial fast phenotype can be combined with the ability of this bacterium to sense specific compounds in their environments. Chemoreceptors enable it to move towards or along gradients of such substances. We will use PCR-based site directed mutagenesis on the E. coli TAR receptor. The combination of speed and chemotaxis allows us to identify E. coli strains, which can sense interesting compounds. Thereby, an easy method for the detection of pollutants, toxins or even tumors could be provided.

Clive S. Barker et al. (2004). Increased Motility of Escherichia coli by Insertion Sequence Element Integration into the Regulatory Region of the flhD Operon. Journal of Bacteriology, Vol. 186: 7529-7537.

Synthetic Biology

Synthetic biology is an interdisciplinary scientific area that has recently developed. It links various fields of science like biology, chemistry, physics, molecular genetics, informatics and engineering.

Due to this combination the relation of biological design and function can be investigated from an entirely new perspective. The previous approach was limited to the examination of a structure and its function and the attempt to explain how they correlate. Recently, the reverse strategy is applied. Biological parts are specifically designed and constructed according to a desired function. These parts are characterized by a standardized modular design that facilitates their handling. The subsequent introduction of the synthetic constructs to living cells can either cause the replacement of original cellular components or result in additional elements that act cooperatively or more or less autonomously (see fig. 1).


After Nandagopaland and Elowitz (2011). A continuum of synthetic biology. Wild-type cells (A) can be subject to two basic types of synthetic manipulation. (B) Autonomous synthetic circuits, consisting of ectopic components, may be introduced into the cell. Such circuits process inputs and implement functions (red arrows) seperate from the endogenous circuitry (black). However, unknown interactions with the host cell may affect their function (purple arrows) (C)An alternative is to rewire (red lines) the endogenous circuits themselves to have new connectivity. (D) Extending this line of synthetic manipulation, synthetic circuits could be integrated into appropriately rewired endogenous circuitry to act as sensors and to implent additional functionality. Ultimate goals of this program are to be able to design and construct (E) synthetic circuits that can functionality replace endogenous circuits or (F) fully autonomous circuits that operate independently of the cellular mileu. Nagarajan Nandagopal and Michael B. Elowitz. (2011). Synthetic Biology: Integrated Gene Circuits. SCIENCE, Vol. 333: 1244-1248.

Another very important and necessary feature of biological parts is orthogonality, which means in this context that independent devices can be combined unrestrictedly. This principle derives from the area of engineering and aims to alter subsystems, without impeding others.

This way cells can be modified as requested, resulting in a predictable behaviour. Among others, this technique can be beneficial for the effective production of certain substances, like biofuels or antibiotics.