SAFETY OVERVIEW
Despite the great expansibility potential of the synthetic biology, the productions of unwilling genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are the main obstacle that slows down the expansion of SynBio. For this concern, safety in environment is the very first issue when scientists come up with a new project. In the case of studying on the assays that involve in vivo media or include biological components, this safety issue becomes necessary. Considering the media that we aim to use in our first module, the possibility of the production of GMO through the conjugation or horizontal gene transfer must be taken into account.
Regarding all of these, we designed a third module in our project that poses a promising solution for involuntary GMO production. Halorhodopsin is an ion channel that is activated by direct emission of light. After activation, it transfers chloride ions into the cell. In our design, we aim to use this mechanism to induce our chloride inducible promoter system which we plan to use as a second mechanism to produce bacterium lysis device. Thus, we intend to induce a self-destruction throughout our bacteria by emitting light.
Abstract
ENRICHMENT
The first module aims to detect the possible circulating tumor cells (CTC) in the bloodstream. However, to be able to identify the presence of CTC through synthetic biology approach, we would need to amplify the signal with a second mechanism due to the prospective weak signal yield of the first module. Hence, we designed an enrichment system to solve this problem. LuxR/AHL duo is one of the main components of quorum sensing mechanism in bacteria. We plan to link this complex to the induction system by TEV protease which we intend to use in the first module. Therefore, the CTC detector bacterium becomes a “sender” to induce a chain reaction for signal amplification. The “message”, which features the knowledge of the detection of CTC, activates the “receiver” system in the rest of the bacteria in the media which ends up with a serial production of signaling molecules. (Here we want to use fluorescent proteins, LacZ and XylE.)
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