Team:WHU-China/Project/Overview

From 2011.igem.org

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<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Stepping into the IGEM world for the first time, we studied a huge amount of previous projects and found that light sensing bacteria kept arousing general interest but remain an unsettled issue. Despite the great efforts made by previous teams, little progress was made in this field. Therefore we decide to make some attempts. We focus on constructing colorful E.coli.
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<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Being born, growing, aging and embracing death, the life process that every creature must go through is just like a movie. However, as one of the simplest life forms, E.coli's life story is too evanescent and monotonous. How can we utilize E.coli to show more complicated processes, such as the growing and withering of a tree?
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<br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Firstly, we came up with the idea of “colorful E.film” based on previous research of bio-imaging. The greatest advantage of our “E.film” against traditional chemical film is the extremely small size of pixels. And we hope to create a colorful film instead of a black-and-white one by constructing three E.coli strains which can produce and secrete three primary colors respectively in the presence of different lights. The combination of various concentrations of the primary colors will yield a colorful picture. Therefore, if we use a color picture as an input signal, the output will be the copy of it on the plate. The whole system works as a camera.
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<br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Numerous problems stand in the way to this goal. So we just take two steps towards this direction. Firstly, we only focus on one pixel of this picture. As time goes by, the color of this point changes periodically. This effect is achieved by a strain of E.coli working as an oscillator which can yield different kinds of pigment periodically with the help of a signal transformation system. Secondly, we will get a static picture if time freezes, just like taking a snap. We call this design “E. film”, and this kind of colorful film is created by constructing three E.coli strains which can produce and secrete three primary colors respectively in the presence of different colors of light.
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<br/>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Secondly, we plan to engineer a light signal producing machine. We designed two separate systems and try to coordinate them: the oscillator system and the signal transformation system. After chemical signals (variation of GFP concentration) are generated by the oscillator system periodically, the transformation system transforms them into light signals. Compared with chemical signals, light signals have several advantages: they can travel without liquid media and can be more easily tested. If connected with another strain of bacteria which can react to the signals, our system may be able to control the behaviors of other bacteria through light. This can be of great significance in automatically manipulating bacteria’s behaviors.
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</br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Currently, we have already done pre-experiments and in the next period we will try our best to make the system work. We hope that our colorful E.coli that weaves time and space will shine this year.
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</br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We will keep updating information about our experiments.
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</br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Look forward to your attention!
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Revision as of 02:13, 26 October 2011

     Being born, growing, aging and embracing death, the life process that every creature must go through is just like a movie. However, as one of the simplest life forms, E.coli's life story is too evanescent and monotonous. How can we utilize E.coli to show more complicated processes, such as the growing and withering of a tree?
     Numerous problems stand in the way to this goal. So we just take two steps towards this direction. Firstly, we only focus on one pixel of this picture. As time goes by, the color of this point changes periodically. This effect is achieved by a strain of E.coli working as an oscillator which can yield different kinds of pigment periodically with the help of a signal transformation system. Secondly, we will get a static picture if time freezes, just like taking a snap. We call this design “E. film”, and this kind of colorful film is created by constructing three E.coli strains which can produce and secrete three primary colors respectively in the presence of different colors of light.

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