Module 5: Salt Tolerance

Description | Design | Construction | Characterisation | Modelling | Results | Conclusions

Conclusion

We have determined that IrrE is an ideal global regulatory gene to be utilised in conferring salt tolerance on our cells. Transforming our cells with the IrrE gene, we have successfully increase the growth rate of E. coli in high salinity conditions.

Within the greater boundaries of our project, this will allow survivability of our E. coli cells in the marine environment. As the ocean has a salinity of approximately 0.6M NaCl in the north pacific gyre, our cells will be able to effectively survive in those conditions.

We note that the global regulatory function of IrrE allows it to confer protection against several other abiotic stressses to E. coli, which we have not covered within the scope of our project. This can potentially be the scope of future investigation, determining the boundaries of environmental conditions that IrrE allows E. coli to withstand.