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From 2010.igem.org

The Approach

First we looked for a sensor system which is able to detect substances of interest. Moreover we needed substances of interest.The system of interest has to be taken out of a differnent bacteria species than E.Coli , in order to avoid any background. Therefor we checked the literature for a well reviewed sensor system, which does not be part of the E.Coli genome. The system of choice is the phenolic sensing system virA of Aggrobacteria tumefaciens. The systems naturally detects acetosyringone, which is a secondary metabolite of plants used as a bacterial attractant. So we hit the literature again to check for any other possible substances, which could be detected by the system. We got a really long list of possibilities and picked 'capcaicin', responsibily for spiciness of a fare.

The biological steps for creating a new sensor system are:

1. extracting the virA system out of A. tumefaciens
2. create new biobricks out of the exciting environmental parts
3. transform the new biobricks into E.Coli
4. modify the system for sensibility and specificity bt error prone pcr
5. find and select the most promising mutants