Team:ETH Zurich/Project

From 2011.igem.org

(Difference between revisions)
(Project description)
(Idea)
Line 49: Line 49:
=== Idea ===
=== Idea ===
-
Our project focuses on the detection of cigarette smoke from the air by ''e.coli'' bacteria and monitoring its concentration visually by display of various lights. Our system will act as a smoke sensor and “partymeter”, telling us how a certain party progresses (under the creative assumption that the progress of the party is measured by the amount of smoke in the air).
+
Our project focuses on the detection of cigarette smoke in the air by ''E.coli'' and monitoring its concentration visually by display of various lights. Our system will act as a smoke sensor and “partymeter”, telling us how a certain party progresses (under the creative assumption that the progress of the party is measured by the amount of smoke in the air).
=== Project description ===
=== Project description ===

Revision as of 14:17, 12 July 2011


This is a template page. READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS.
You are provided with this team page template with which to start the iGEM season. You may choose to personalize it to fit your team but keep the same "look." Or you may choose to take your team wiki to a different level and design your own wiki. You can find some examples HERE.
You MUST have a team description page, a project abstract, a complete project description, a lab notebook, and a safety page. PLEASE keep all of your pages within your teams namespace.


You can write a background of your team here. Give us a background of your team, the members, etc. Or tell us more about something of your choosing.
ETH Zurich logo.png

Tell us more about your project. Give us background. Use this is the abstract of your project. Be descriptive but concise (1-2 paragraphs)

File:ETH Zurich team.png
Your team picture
Team Example


Home Team Official Team Profile Project Parts Submitted to the Registry Modeling Notebook Safety Attributions



Contents

Overall project

Idea

Our project focuses on the detection of cigarette smoke in the air by E.coli and monitoring its concentration visually by display of various lights. Our system will act as a smoke sensor and “partymeter”, telling us how a certain party progresses (under the creative assumption that the progress of the party is measured by the amount of smoke in the air).

Project description

Cigarette smoke detector

We engineer our cells such that they can detect acetaldehyde, which is a substance found in cigarette smoke. Upon binding of acetaldehyde to AlcR, AlcR acts as an inhibitor of gene transcription. This is where our genetically engineered circuit starts. With a number of inhibitors and activators, our circuit gives rise to a GFP output upon sensing acetaldehyde in a certain range of concentration. Our circuit then acts as an acetaldehyde band-pass filter.

Our genetically engineered cells are cultivated in a microfluidic channel and are constantly supplied with a flow of growth medium containing acetaldehyde. They are designed to degrade acetaldehyde, such that a concentration gradient is created along the flow direction within the channel.

Since our cells detect only a certain concentration range of acetaldehyde, as the gradient moves through the channel with varying initial concentration, the GFP stripe that certain cells produce will also "move along". Furthermore, our system acts as a low-pass filter which produces AHL molecules once the acetaldehyde concentration is below a certain threshold (the lower threshold for the previously described band-pass filter). Thus, cells that are on the right side of the GFP stripe will produce AHL (assuming the flow direction is from left to right).

As the stripe moves through the channel, AHL is always produced to its right and flows along in the channel. Moreover, we feed back some of the produced AHL to the channel again, by a "recycling channel", so that even the cells to the left of the stripe are supplied with AHL. As soon as the stripe moves to the end of the channel, no more cells produce AHL and the recycling ceases after a while. The absence of AHL then triggers RFP production by the entire culture.

Thus, with increasing acetaldehyde concentration in our channel one can see a moving green stripe. Once it reaches the end of the channel, the entire culture turns red.

Project Details

Part 2

The Experiments

Part 3

Results