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Team:MIT/Project
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Overall project
A clinical study (Kelly CG et al.; Nature Biotechnol. 1999) reports that a short synthetic peptide (20 amino acids long) called p1025 can reduce oral colonization of a major tooth-decaying bacterium Streptococcus mutans and thus help to maintain oral health. The peptide does so by competitively inhibit binding of S. mutans to a glycoprotein from saliva on tooth surface. The peptide is considered advantageous because it selectively prevents S. mutans colonization without removing beneficial bacteria that are also present in the mouth.
Our research goal is to engineer one of the common yogurt bacteria, Lactobacillus bulgaricus, so that it secrets p1025 in yogurt. Consumption of the yogurt after a meal could reduce tooth decay. We are not going to market this yogurt. (Neither will any of us taste this yogurt! There’s no telling what residual chemicals could be left over from lab work) However, our project will demonstrate a bio-engineering approach to increase the value of common probiotics.
Project Details
Stage 1
- Construction of p1025 fusion peptide and expression of gene in E. coli. This is an intermediate step to evaluate gene function and protein secretion/efficacy
Stage 2
- Binding Assay - see if the p1025 produced by E.coli inhibits binding of S. mutants to hydroxyapatite (HA) beads
Stage 3
- Expression of p1025 in Lactobacillus
Stage 4
- Make yogurt with modified Lactobacillus and test for inhibition of S. mutants binding
