Team:MIT

Welcome to the MIT team Wiki for iGEM 2008 iGEM is the international genetically engineered machines competition. The objective of the competition is to design and build an engineered biological system using [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA DNA]. To see examples of the amazing possibilities of iGEM, check out last years [http://parts.mit.edu/igem07/index.php/Main_Page iGEM page] Read our promotional brochure to learn about synthetic biology at MIT (front and back). iGEM at MIT is possible because of outside support, contact Tom Knight (tk [at] mit.edu) to help out!

Project Description

Our goal is to engineer yogurt to prevent cavities.

Teeth are covered in a complex biofilm containing many types of bacteria and glycoproteins. Of all the bacteria found in the biofilm, only one strain, Streptococcus mutans is known to be harmful. S.mutans attatches to a glycoprotein in the biofilm, forms colonies, takes in sugars, and secretes lactic acid which breaks down the enamel of the teeth, causing dental cavities. A clinical study (Kelly CG et al.; Nature Biotechnol. 1999) isolated the protein that S.mutans uses to attach to the teeth and isolated the 20aa functional segment (p1025) that actually binds to the glycoproteins. p1025 competitively inhibits the binding of S.mutans, causing other (unharmful) bacteria to grow in its place. This was found to prevent the recolonization of S.mutans for about 90 days. We are engineering Lactobacillus bulgaricus, a bacteria commonly found in yogurt, to produce this peptide. Although the peptide could be commercially added to the yogurt, the independent production of this peptide by l.bulgaricus will enable continuous production and remove the need for outside infrastructure. Since a new batch of yogurt is made by using the bacteria from a small saved amount of the old batch, a continuous supply of teeth-cleaning yogurt will be made available.