Team:Wisconsin-Madison

Engineering the limonene production metabolic pathway: TCC.

Creating a tool to evaluate the translation of heterologous genes in Eschericia coli.

TCC

Limonene is a colorless, liquid hydrocarbon that smells like lemon. It is found in the oils of citrus fruits and is primarily used as a cleaning agent, solvent, and flavorful food additive. Limonene also possesses chemical properties that make it an ideal jet fuel due to it's low freezing point and high combustibility. E. coli already has part of the metabolic pathway required to produce limonene, however we will be inserting genes from S. cerevisiae to create the mevalonate pathway in the cell. We will also codon optimize the Limonene Synthase (LimS1) gene which is the final step in converting GPP to limonene. Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry will be used to determine how much limonene the E. coli is producing.

Translational couplding cassette