LacI Inducible System

In this system, the lac repressor (LacI) is controlled by a strong constitutive promoter, and is upstream of mtrB under the control of pLac, a LacI regulated promoter. In the default state, LacI is expressed, and inhibits transcription at pLac. This should allow us to control the expression of mtrB. In the default state, mtrB is not expressed. IPTG (an analog of allolactose) induces mtrB expression by binding to LacI, thereby preventing it from inhibiting transcription at pLac.

BBa_K098984 with BioBrick Prefix and Suffix

Induction Test for LacI System with GFP

In preparing to make the lacI system for mtrB, we tested the IPTG inducibility of [http://partsregistry.org/wiki/index.php?title=Part:BBa_K098982 BBa_K098982] in E. coli. In this system, the repressor (LacI) is driven by a weak promoter.

Method

Our test method is diagrammed below.

Results

Induction of GFP expression was observed at both 2 and 4 hours after adding IPTG. Levels of GFP expression in uninduced samples, however, remained relatively the same throughout the 4 hours. Meanwhile, IPTG induction was not observed in either the negative control ([http://partsregistry.org/wiki/index.php?title=Part:BBa_K098981 BBa_K098981]) or the constitutive GFP control ([http://partsregistry.org/wiki/index.php?title=Part:BBa_K098991 BBa_K098991]).

Lac Inducibility Results