Team:St Andrews

Welcome to the University of St Andrew's iGEM wiki!
Our multidisciplinary group of scientists will first re-engineer the existing LuxR quorum sensing system to create a bistable switch. This will allow us to infer a signalling molecule concentration required to deactivate the system much lower than the concentration required to activate it.
The second part of the project involves introducing the cholera autoinducer synthase gene CqsA to Escherichia coli so that CAI-1 is secreted.
Our engineered Escherichia coli will harmlessly colonise the gut, and in large numbers secrete the cholera autoinducer, CAI-1. This will cause an immediate high autoinducer concentration to be detected by incoming Vibrio cholerae cells which then become avirulent and harmlessly pass out of the body.