Team:TU Delft/24 April 2010 content

From 2010.igem.org

Contents

Session 8

Now it’s not if we like the idea anymore (otherwise it wouldn’t be a chosen idea), but how could we accomplish it? How feasible is it? What BioBricks do we expect to make with this?

1. Oil removal

  • Hydrocarbon degradation
  • Oil sand processing gives wastewater with allot of oil (bitumen) => Convert this wastewater into something valuable
  • Salinity, pH, mass transfer problems

Split into 3 teams:

Hydrocarbon degradation

  • Maybe start with Benzoic acid & Alkenes?
  • Probably the most work of all the teams, but others could help once they are done
  • Most likely an aerobic process (most likely none of the enzymes are oxygen sensitive)
  • Be careful whether the intermediates may be toxic
  • Sugar metabolism is no longer necessary in E.coli

Salt tolerance

  • Give the other team a strain of E.coli that can handle salt.
  • Biobrick 2009; not clear whether it works or not?

Overcoming mass transfer

  • Adding an emulsifier to make the oil soluble?
  • Production of hydrophilic/hydrophobic peptide?

Extra features

  • We are making allot of acetyl CoA, so why not produce something useful?
  • Biofuel? Propanol/ethanol/biodiesel? There are some biobricks for this… but no Exporter? (Biobrick), PHA/PHB

Other points

  • Money / many biobricks / lot of literature
  • Is E.coli the bug to go with?
  • We don’t necessarily have to put all 4 projects into one strain, but we can start with 4 and maybe if we have time we could try to.
  • Good project that represents Delft (mass transfer etc.)
  • There are no biobricks for hydrocarbon degradation!

Vote: Yes (8/8)

2. Algae bloom /nitrate reduction

  • A mutated FNR can induce the nitrate consumption under aerobic conditions
  • Biobrick for nitrite sensor
  • E.coli would probably be outcompeted by the algae? Depends on the carbon source
  • Some enzymes will be inhibited by oxygen

Vote: No (0/8)

3. Appetite inhibitor

  • Caerulein
  • Combination with circadian clock for times of production and non-production?
  • Regulation is definitely necessary
  • Couple it to blood sugar levels? Not really possible to sensor something in the blood from within the gut?

Vote: No (3/8)

4. Circadian Clocks / oscillators

  • Oscillations are easy to come by
  • Tool for another project?
  • Hard to accurately predict the actual frequency; could only occur through true labwork
  • Frequency would be dependent on the concentrations of the compounds as well as the growth rates for these also determine the degradation etc.
  • How could you change affinity constants? (Kai system)
  • Biobrick for Kai is already available, but how can you influence the frequency without trial-and-error?
  • There is literature that could help make a model…

Vote: No (3/8)