Team:Osaka/Project

Project: The Continuous Greening Cycle

Introduction

Desertification all over the world causes famine, drought and suffering. We aim to develop micro-machines that can stop and even reverse desertification by recovering vegetation in these areas.

Objectives

We had 3 objectives in mind when planning this project:

1. To address environmental issue of desertification
2. To investigate the feasibility of engineering a cyclic biological system
3. To contribute to iGEM and Synthetic Biology by developing and characterizing new parts

The Cycle

We envisioned a Continuous Greening Cycle in which engineered microorganisms decompose plant fibers into nutrients through the action of cellulolytic enzymes. They then produce water-holding polymers such as poly(gamma-glutamic) acid that retain water in the soil to help plants grow. When the plants die they will be decomposed to start the cycle anew.

Cellulose degradation

Cellulase

Polyglutamic acid (PGA) synthesis

Construction of the parts for cellulose degradation and PGA synthesis outlined above formed the majority of our wet lab work. We produced a collection of new BioBricks by PCR from existing plasmids or genome DNA, and also made some constructs to test the new parts. For more info, please see Parts.

Tests

We ran several tests to confirm the working of our parts, as well as characterize them quantitatively. See the Tests page for more info.

Modeling

We also attempted to construct a model and simulate it using software in order to determine the feasibility of the cycle as well as identify important parameters involved. See the Modeling page for more info.

Summary of results

Plans for future work