Team:Virginia United
From 2010.igem.org
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Quorum Sensing Amplifiers and a Co-design Approach for Information ProcessingWe are using a co-design approach to construct a multiple-compound biosensor that detects heavy metals (arsenic, mercury, copper) in aquatic environments. This chart describes the device logic that will be implemented:
![]() This logic will be implemented in three different designs. One of the approaches utilizes the operator sites of regulatory promoters, hybridizing two promoters’ operator sites into a single co-sensing promoter. In order for the hybrid promoter to initiate transcription, two target metals that control the operator sites must be present. Since, the hybrid promoters are attached to a single fluorescent protein, the detection of both metals can be measured using fluorescence.
![]() The second approach utilizes fluorescent protein complementation. When a target metal is detected by a cell, it will transcribe a fragment of a fluorescent protein. Upon translation, the portions of the fluorescent proteins will bond together and fluoresce, reporting the presence of the two target metals.
![]() In the third approach, each of the metals directly induces the production of a corresponding fluorescent protein. Fluorescence spectroscopy is used to separate out the wavelengths of each fluorescent protein, which will indicate what compounds are present in the environment.
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