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Team:University of Alberta
From 2008.igem.org
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The Chimeras
(Blurring the line between plant and bacteria)
A Brief Introduction
Our project focuses on creating the very first synthetic biology plant chassis ever presented as a IGEM project. We plan on doing this by taking advantage of already existing photosensors and temperature switches existing in plants. Our end result will be photo and temperature sensitive grass. The idea would be to introduce two different lux operons encoding for two different colors and have the expression of them controlled by light and temperature. During the day both lux pathways would be turned off by the photosensor switch, at night the one of the lux operons would be turned on decided by the temperature switch.
The Photo Sensor
Our photo sensor would take advantage of an already existing red/far red pathway existing in plants. Pathway is normally used to detect shading by other plants as well as the end of the day. When red light is present the PR protein turns into PFR which activates another protein which then binds to LRE (Light Responsive Element) section of the DNA this then activates the production of rubisco. When the plant is exposed to far red light (such as would occur at the end of the day) the PFR protien converts back to PR and the pathway shuts off. Our project will take advantage of this pathway and create an LRE biobrick which can then be used as a photosensor. In our project LRE will be attached to a luxR to allow for the lux pathway to be shut off during the day and turn on during the night.
The Temperature Sensor
The temperature sensor will be cold sensitive that will cause the production of a repressor which will be used to repress one of the pathways (lux2). The repressed lux2 pathway carries another repressor for the lux1 pathway that is transcribed only when the temperature senor is turned off. This will allow for the change of color due to temperature.
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Our Team
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