Team:TU-Eindhoven/Future applications/Human interest

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Our yeast cells: contribution to calcium research on a fundamental level

A biological multi-colored display, in which genetically engineered yeast cells function as pixels, is of course an invention on its own. However, our project also contributes to calcium flux or pathway research on a more fundamental level. Our yeast cells with an overexpression of MID1/CCH1 and incorporated GECO proteins can serve as a model system for calcium research.

Calcium homeostasis in yeast cells is similar in mechanisms and involved proteins to other eukaryotic cells, including human cells. However, performing experiments with yeast cells is more manageable and raises less ethical questions compared to experiments using human cells. By using our yeast cell as a model system, more insights can be gained in the calcium fluxes and the mysteries of calcium pathways. Once these are well understood within the concept of yeast, one might also be able to translate the conclusions to mammalian cells. It will at the very least provide a starting point for unraveling the unknowns of calcium pathways in mammalian cells. Understanding these pathways may lead to important insights in pathologies, such as aortic valve stenosis, deranged neuronal calcium signaling or muscular diseases (to name only a few examples of diseases involving calcium pathways).

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-<h3>Multiple purposes for calcium kinetics and GECO proteins</h3>
-A biological multi-colored display, in which genetically engineered yeast cells function as pixels, is of course an invention on its own. However, multiple purposes exist for our yeast cells.
+<h3>Our yeast cells: contribution to calcium research on a fundamental level</h3>
+<p>A biological multi-colored display, in which genetically engineered yeast cells function as pixels, is of course an invention on its own. However, our project also contributes to calcium flux or pathway research on a more fundamental level. Our yeast cells with an overexpression of MID1/CCH1 and incorporated GECO proteins can serve as a model system for calcium research. </p>
-Research, to investigate calcium fluxes or unraveling the mysteries of calcium pathways in yeast, is often done with the help of aequorin. This is a fluorescent protein, which was isolated from jellyfish by Osamu Shimomura in 1962. It is often used in multiple researches with mammalian and bacterial cells. However, incorporating aequorin in yeast cells requires an addition of coelenterazine to the medium. The GECO proteins used in our project are variants of the Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) and these were made calcium dependent by directed evolution. Calcium research done with GECO proteins does not require the addition of coelenterazine. Therefore, yeast expressing GECOs, as in our project, represents a manageable system which can save time and effort when compared to aequorin and variants of GFP research.
+<p>Calcium homeostasis in yeast cells is similar in mechanisms and involved proteins to other eukaryotic cells, including human cells. However, performing experiments with yeast cells is more manageable and raises less ethical questions compared to experiments using human cells. By using our yeast cell as a model system, more insights can be gained in the calcium fluxes and the mysteries of calcium pathways. Once these are well understood within the concept of yeast, one might also be able to translate the conclusions to mammalian cells. It will at the very least provide a starting point for unraveling the unknowns of calcium pathways in mammalian cells. Understanding these pathways may lead to important insights in pathologies, such as aortic valve stenosis, deranged neuronal calcium signaling or muscular diseases (to name only a few examples of diseases involving calcium pathways). </p>
-Another important aspect lies in calcium channel research in the world of medicine. Nowadays, animal testing is done in order to test the functioning of drugs on mammalian calcium channels. Our genetically engineered yeast cells contain calcium channels which are homologues of the channels in mammalian cells and function similarly. Therefore some degree of animal testing may become obsolete by using our yeast cells and the knowledge gained from our project. All in all, the results of this year’s iGEM team of Eindhoven University of Technology serve multiple purposes.
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