Team:ETH Zurich/Project/Conclusions

From 2008.igem.org

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In this iGEM project we addressed the question of how the minimal genome of a particular organism, E.coli, could be identified and made available in the form of minimal strain to researchers. The motivations that made the finding of a minimal genome strain appealing are two folds: the indication that in essentiality are hidden some fundamental biological properties and the desire of having a convinient chassis for synthetic biology. In this contest we required our target minimal genome to have two properties:

  • to be as simple as possible, meaning as much reduced in genome size and gene content as possible
  • to be vital, meaning that we were aiming for strains able to provide a reactive and productive background on which to add synthetic functionalities.



are two-fold and all related to the semplicity and essentiality of minimal genomes: they may lead to fundamental biological insights and be