Team:Wisconsin-Madison/alkane

In the production of large chain alkanes for biofuel production, it is crucial for there to be a rapid and accurate diagnostic for comparing production rates in engineered strains of E. coli. To develop an alkane biosensor, genes from Pseudomonas putida and Alcanivorax borkumensis were isolated and constructed into a pair of plasmids which code for proteins that bind to alkanes. This induces a promoter upstream of a red fluorescent protein, which can be detected easily using various methods. Similar to our ethanol sensor, we can find a linear regression by gathering data at different concentrations of n-alkanes, allowing for the quantification of an unknown alkane concentration in a media based upon the level of fluorescence.

Image: In the presence of Lactose, the PLac promoter will turn on transcription of alkS, which binds to the n-alkane. This complex then activates the PalkB promoter, which turns on transcription of our fluorescent protein.

Learn more about: genes, plasmids.