Team:Hong Kong-CUHK/Project

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<li><a class="nav-project" href="/Team:Hong_Kong-CUHK/Project_light_control">Light Control</a></li>
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<li><a  href="/Team:Hong_Kong-CUHK/Project/background">Background</a></li>
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<li><a class="nav-project" href="/Team:Hong_Kong-CUHK/Project_electricity" style="color:black;">Electricity Generation</a></li>
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<li><a class="list-2" href="/Team:Hong_Kong-CUHK/Project/Halorhodopsin">Halorhodopsin</a></li>
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<li><a class="list-2" href="/Team:Hong_Kong-CUHK/Project/Chloride Sensing Unit">Chloride Sensing Unit</a></li>
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<li><a class="list-2" href="/Team:Hong_Kong-CUHK/Project/Mixing Entropy Battery">Mixing Entropy Battery</a></li>
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<li><a class="list-2" href="/Team:Hong_Kong-CUHK/Project/light">Light Intra-tunable System</a></li>
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<li><a class="list-2" href="/Team:Hong_Kong-CUHK/Project/electricity">Solar Electricity Generation</a></li>
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<li><a href="/Team:Hong_Kong-CUHK/Project/further">Future Applications</a></li>
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<h1>Project Description</h1>
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<h2>Objectives</h2>
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<p class="main-content">Our world is obviously facing several urgent problems in which energy crisis is definitely a major one.
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Nowadays, there are corresponding solutions to this problem. However, we find that the existing solutions are not satisfactory.
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There are solar panels to convert light energy into electricity, but it usually requires a large infrastructure.
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However, the efficiency of the conversion process is still not good enough.
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In order to improve the situation, our project targets at producing electricity more cheaply, more effectively and in a more portable way.</p>
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In 2010 iGEM competition, Queens-Canada team submited <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halorhodopsin">Halorhodopsin</a> from <em>H. salinarum</em> as biobricks and inserted this gene into <em>C. elegans</em>. However, it was not well characterized. This year, we are trying to clone halorhdopsin from <em>N. pharaonis,</em> which has already been successfully introduced and proved to perform complete light cycles in <em> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli">E. coli</a>, </em>to our biobrick system<sup>1</sup>. We aim to characterize the efficiency of this <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halorhodopsin">Halorhodopsin</a> to be a well-documented biobrick and a useful tool in <em> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli">E. coli</a> </em>.
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<h2>How can we achieve this?</h2>
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<p class="main-content">We employ a light-driven ion pump in our project.
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By expressing the pump into our target bacterial strain, we can control the bacteria to pump in ions from the environment,
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and eventually produce a salinity difference. Also, we are going to manufacture a pair of specific electrodes.
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By making use of the electrodes, the salinity difference as well as our genetically engineered bacteria,
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In previous iGEM projects, various light sensors have been developed, including red light sensor (UT Austin, 2004), green light sensor (Tokyo-Nokogen, 2009) and blue light sensor (University of Edinburgh, 2010). They are all light-induced fusion transcription factors that trigger gene expression under the control of specific promoters, facilitating simply on/off switch and light-coupled communication. However, our design makes <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halorhodopsin">Halorhodopsin</a> not only a dynamically tunable light sensor – by coupling with chloride sensitive promoters (e.g. P<sub>gad</sub>), but also an energy converter – by storing solar energy as osmolality potential and further converted it into electricity. Our project would provide a wilder scope of applications from signal transduction and gene regulation to energy generation.
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we can generate electricity from the salinity difference which is produced by our genetically engineered bacteria in the presence of light.
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It is a brand new way to generate electricity.</p>
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References
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1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Hohenfeld, I. Purification of histidine tagged bacteriorhodopsin, pharaonis <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halorhodopsin">Halorhodopsin</a> and pharaonis sensory rhodopsin II functionally expressed in Escherichia coli. <em>FEBS Letters</em> <strong>442</strong>,198-202(1999).
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Latest revision as of 02:51, 6 October 2011

Previous related projects

 

In 2010 iGEM competition, Queens-Canada team submited Halorhodopsin from H. salinarum as biobricks and inserted this gene into C. elegans. However, it was not well characterized. This year, we are trying to clone halorhdopsin from N. pharaonis, which has already been successfully introduced and proved to perform complete light cycles in E. coli, to our biobrick system1. We aim to characterize the efficiency of this Halorhodopsin to be a well-documented biobrick and a useful tool in E. coli .

 

In previous iGEM projects, various light sensors have been developed, including red light sensor (UT Austin, 2004), green light sensor (Tokyo-Nokogen, 2009) and blue light sensor (University of Edinburgh, 2010). They are all light-induced fusion transcription factors that trigger gene expression under the control of specific promoters, facilitating simply on/off switch and light-coupled communication. However, our design makes Halorhodopsin not only a dynamically tunable light sensor – by coupling with chloride sensitive promoters (e.g. Pgad), but also an energy converter – by storing solar energy as osmolality potential and further converted it into electricity. Our project would provide a wilder scope of applications from signal transduction and gene regulation to energy generation.

 

 

References

1.        Hohenfeld, I. Purification of histidine tagged bacteriorhodopsin, pharaonis Halorhodopsin and pharaonis sensory rhodopsin II functionally expressed in Escherichia coli. FEBS Letters 442,198-202(1999).

 

 

 


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