Team:WHU-China

    Our project focuses on constructing colorful E.coli, which includes two parts. We plan to construct two systems consisting of several strains of E.coli: one produces different pigments due to the change of time, and the other produces different pigments with the change of position.
    In the first part, we came up with the idea of “colorful E.film”. In hope to create a colorful film, we will construct three E.coli strains which can produce and secrete one of the three primary colors (namely magenta, yellow, and cyan), respectively in the presence of the three primary lights (namely red, green and blue). We plan to spread these three strains evenly on a plate, so that once a certain spot on the plate is exposed to light, it will exhibit the same color as the light. For instance, if a spot is exposed to red light, the E. coli that produce cyan pigment(the complementary color of red) will be inhibited, while two other strains will function properly. When we blends magenta and yellow, we get red. Therefore, if we use a color picture as an input signal, the output will be the copy of it on the plate.
    In the second part, the strain of E.coli works as an oscillator which can yield different kinds of pigment periodically with the help of a signal transformation system. We have two groups working on this project jointly. The group responsible for mathematical model has already verified the feasibility of biological oscillator by us. The expected effect of oscillator has been visualized and can be found on our wiki. The other group works on the construction of our E.coli, and most parts of the oscillator have already finished and confirmed by sequencing.