Team:Calgary/Parts/Characterization

From 2010.igem.org

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<h2 style="color:#0066CC">Experiment 6: Preliminary characterization of nms6 for the University of Lethbridge Team</h2></P>
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<h3><u>Purpose/ Protocol</u></h3>
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The Univeristy of Lethbridge iGEM team has been having trouble expressing one of their proteins, nms6.  This protein is localized in the cytoplasm, so we decided to do some testing of it with our ibpAB reporter in order to get an idea as to whether this protein may be misfolding in the cytoplasm.  They sent the gene to us in biobrick format and we constructed it downstream of an arabinose inducble promoter and ribosomal binding site (I0500-B0034).  We then transformed it into TOP 10 E. coli competant cells containing the ibpAB reporter plasmid (ibpAB-I13504).  5 mL overnight cultures were made in LB broth and induced with varying concentrations of arabinose and grown ovenright.  GFP fluorescece was then measured.
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<h3><u>Results</u></h3>
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These prelimnary results are not conclusive, however they seem to indicate that
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Revision as of 02:13, 28 October 2010

Characterization

Experiment 1: Testing of malE and malE31 with literature established reporter constructs

Protocol:

We obtained degP and cpxR porter constructs from a lab in Edmonton. These constructs contain the promoters upstream of lacZ. These reporters were characterized with NLPE, an outermembrane lipoprotein that activates the cpx pathway. We made TOP10 E. Coli competant cells with plasmids of these constructs and then transformed in malE and malE31 expression constructs. We also transformed in the NLPE expression construct which we received fro the Raivio lab as well. The purpose of this was to verify that the reporters that they ha sent us worked, as they had previously characterized these reporters using NLPE. From plates we made 5 mL LB cultures and induced with 1uL IPTG for cultures contain the NLPE constructs. 75uL of xGal was also added to each culture. The cultures were then grown up overnight in a 37C shaking incubator and observed for color.

Results

Figure 1: Image of overnight cultures. From left to right: NLPE in cells with the degP reporter construct, NLPE in cells with the cpxR reporter, malE31 in cells with the degP reporter, malE31 in cells with the cpxR reporter, malE in cells with the degP reporter contruct and malE in cells containing the cpxR reporter.

Discussion of Results and Conclusion

Figure 1 indicates that malE31 is able to activae the cpxR and and degP promoers while malE is not. This allowed us to conlucde that these parts are working as expected. Although these parts are both entered in the registry, the sequences are not complete, so we are submitting new versions of them, constructed ourselves. Once we knew that these parts were functional, we went o to characterize them with our reporter constructs.

Experiment 2: Characterization of the cpxR promoter's response to folding and misfolding proteins through co-transformation of MalE and MalE31 coupled to arabinose promoter in cpxR reporter competent cells

Protocol:

Arabinose inducible promoter (I0500) coupled with standard ribosome binding site (B0034) and the respective maltose binding protein were transformed into competent cells containing pCpxR coupled with RFP generator (I13507). These cells were plated and incubated overnight. Colonies from each of the plates were selected and overnight cultures were prepared at 37 C. These 5 ml overnight cultures were then sub-cultured in 20 ml broth. These were shaken for 6-8 hours and aliquoted into 5 ml cultures and induced with varying levels of arabinose(percent). This was incubated in the shaker for 12-14 hours and RFP output was measured using 555 excitation and 632 nm emission frequency.

Results

CpxR

Figure 2: RFP output produced by the CpxR-I13507 system when co-transfected with I0500-B0034-MalE (red) and I0500-B0034-MalE31 (blue) at different arabinose concentrations. RFP levels were measured at 555 nm excitation and 632 nm emission frequencies

Photobucket

Figure 3: RFP output produced by the CpxR-I13507 system when co-transfected with I0500-B0034-MalE (red) and I0500-B0034-MalE31 (blue) at different arabinose concentrations. RFP levels were measured at 555 nm excitation and 632 nm emission frequencies.

Discussion of Results and Conclusion

Figure 2 and 3 indicate the RFP output normalized with growth ratio (OD) at different levels of arabinose. Figure 1 shows that CpxR-I13507 is activated at the highest level when MalE31, the periplasmic misfolder, is expressed. This occurs around 0.2% arabinose concentration. Similar trends are observed in the case of MalE which is a periplasmic folder. MalE and MalE31 activate the system at different levels. MalE31 has similar trends to MalE but has a higher level of RFP expression. These results prove that MalE and MalE31 can both activate the CpxR system however, MalE31, which misfolds, activates it more rapidly and at a lower level of arabinose concentration compared to MalE. If the line of best fit is studied, it is seen that MalE has very minimal level of Cpx activation. Whereas, malE31 has a linear regression which flattens out as the system reaches its upper threshold of detection. Biologically, this could mean that the MalE31 is activated at levels that saturate the cellular chaperones and cause the system to reach its threshold level of proteolytic and chaperone activities. Another interesting pattern observed is the fact that when MalE is constructed with CpxR-I13507 on the same plasmid (Green), the cell RFP output is much lower compared to cells co-transfected with CpxR-I13507 and I0500-B0034 –MalE. This indicates that insertion of high copy plasmid also induces stress in the periplasmic region of the cell consequently inducing the activation of CpxR system.

Experiment 3: Characetrizing the cpxR promoter's response to varying temperatures over different time periods

Protocol:

Top 10 competent cells were transformed with CpxR-I13507 and plated. 5 ml overnight cultures were made from 5 different colonies using LB broth with appropriate antibiotics. Each of these cultures were aliquoted into six different tubes containing 600 µL of culture. These tubes were then placed in hot water baths at 30 C, 37C, 42C, 47C. Measurements were taken every hour for 5 hours after placing the tubes in different temperatures at 555 nm excitation and 632 nm emission.

Temperature induction

Figure 3: RFP output produced by the CpxR-I13507 system when the system is heat shocked at different temperature for different lengths of time. The RFP output was measured at 555 nm excitation and 632 nm emission frequencies

Discussion of Results and Conclusion

This graph shows that the CpxR system does respond to temperature activated stress. When the system is placed at 42 C the RFP output is much higher at t=0 compared to the system placed at 37 C or 30 C. This indicates that the system does get activated due to heat shock which matches the literature parameters. At 47 C, the system gets activated faster because the linear regression has a steeper slope. This indicates that the system is being stressed and it produces its downstream product which is RFP in this case and DegP and other chaperones in the genomic DNA much faster in order to cope with periplasmic protein denaturation. Also, it seems that the system gets activated dramatically after 3 hours regardless of the temperature, this could indicate that the system peaks after 3 hours and the genomic CpxR produces enough downstream chaperones and proteases in order for the system to be able to cope with stress which allows the RFP reading to decrease at 4 hours time because the cell reaches homeostasis. This allows the cell to get rid of misfolded protein and other factors that might be contributing to stressing it out and causing the Cpx regulon to be activated. The cell then shows a rapid rise again because it is still under heat shock stress. But, if the cell was placed at 37 degrees, the cell would show a flatline pattern rather than an oscillating pattern.

Experiment 4: Characterization of the degP promoter's response to folding and misfolding proteins

Protocol

Arabinose inducible promoter (I0500) coupled with standard ribosome binding site (B0034) and the respective maltose binding protein were transformed into competent cells containing pDegP coupled with RFP generator (I13507). These cells were plated and incubated overnight. Colonies from each of the plates were selected and overnight cultures were prepared at 37 C. These 5 ml overnight cultures were then subcultured in 20 ml LB broth. These were shaken for 6-8 hours and aliquoted into 5 ml cultures and induced with varying levels of arabinose. This was incubated in the shaker for 12-14 hours and RFP output was measured using 555/632 nm.

Photobucket

This figure demonstrates that the DegP promoter activated with 15 different concentrations of arabinose. This diagram shows that the DegP promoter (K239000) is not particularly sensitive to misfolding proteins.

Discussion and conclusions

The figure shows that MalE and MalE31 express the DegP promoter in a similar fashion. This is slightly contradictory compared to the literature. The literature claims that the DegP promoter is upregulated in the case of protein misfolding, graph shown . Since MalE and MalE31 have been tested using other experiments described in this page, it is reasonable to conclude that K230009 is not very responsive to protein folding stress, that is , the DNA might not be consistent.

Experiment 5: Characterization of the ibpAB fusion promoter's response to folding and misfolding proteins

Purpose/ Protocol

The purpose of this assay is to characterize the ibpAB fusion promoter (ibpAB-FxSA) with a protein that is known to fold correctly (malEΔSS) and with a protein that are known to misfold (malE31ΔSS) in the cytoplasm. Expression constructs for these two proteins were transformed into TOP 10 competant E. Coli cells containing the plasmid with the ibpAB reporter construct (ibpAB-I13504). These constructs contain the gene downstream of a maltose inducible promoter. From plates, 5 ml overnight cultures were grown up in LB broth at 37 C and induced with varying concentrations of arabinose. GFP fluorescence was then measured.

Results

Experiment 6: Preliminary characterization of nms6 for the University of Lethbridge Team

Purpose/ Protocol

The Univeristy of Lethbridge iGEM team has been having trouble expressing one of their proteins, nms6. This protein is localized in the cytoplasm, so we decided to do some testing of it with our ibpAB reporter in order to get an idea as to whether this protein may be misfolding in the cytoplasm. They sent the gene to us in biobrick format and we constructed it downstream of an arabinose inducble promoter and ribosomal binding site (I0500-B0034). We then transformed it into TOP 10 E. coli competant cells containing the ibpAB reporter plasmid (ibpAB-I13504). 5 mL overnight cultures were made in LB broth and induced with varying concentrations of arabinose and grown ovenright. GFP fluorescece was then measured.

Results

These prelimnary results are not conclusive, however they seem to indicate that