"
Team:MIT toggle
From 2010.igem.org
Revision as of 18:51, 25 October 2010 by Supacalafrglstic (Talk | contribs)
iGEM 2010
bacterial toggle |
A genetic switch or toggle follows the general form of two proteins that inhibit the others' transcription. Because of this arrangement, the toggle has two stable states -- on or off -- and one can switch between the states with certain inputs. This pseudo-binary, reversible setup implies a simple but powerful control over a genetic system. The Bacterial team focused on implementing and improving the Collins toggle, pTSMa. The ultimate goal was to use the toggle to control growth of our modified phage M13, so that exposing UV light in a design on a lawn of bacteria would result in phage production and polymerization in the exposed area. As an intermediate in our project, we have managed to create what is essentially an improved bacterial camera capable of instantaneous photography. We implemented part of the Collins toggle in our bacteria, improving upon previous iGEM bacterial cameras by shortening the exposure time from hours (UT-Austin 2005) to seconds. During our experiments, noticeable cell death in UV-exposed regions prompted development of an additional feature. Our bacterial circuit improves upon the Collins toggle in that the power of UV light required to switch the toggle is reduced, resulting in significantly more cells surviving the image capture process. |
 |
