From 2011.igem.org

Revision as of 13:05, 28 October 2011

The project

The development of sensitive and selective biosensors is an important research field in synthetic biology. Biosensors can be applied in a wide range of uses - from the detection of environmental toxics up to clinical diagnostics. Because cells have to sense their surroundings, there are a lot of natural systems that are similar to a biosensor. Prejudicial cellular biosensors often show negative side effects that complicate any practical application. Common problems are the limited use outside of a gene laboratory due to the use of genetically engineered cells, the low durability because of the usage of living cells and the appearance of undesired signals induced by endogenous metabolic pathways.

To solve these problems, the iGEM-Team Bielefeld 2011 aims to develope a cell-free bisphenol A (BPA) biosensor based on a coupled enzyme reaction fused to S-layer proteins for everyday use. Bisphenol A is a supposedly harmful substance which is used in the production of polycarbonate. To detect BPA it is degraded by a fusion protein under formation of NAD⁺ which is detected by an NAD⁺-dependent enzymatic reaction with a molecular beacon. Both enzymes are fused to S-layer proteins which build up well-defined nanosurfaces and are attached to the surface of beads. By providing these nanobiotechnological building blocks the system is expandable to other applications.

Subprojects

Human Practice

The goals of our outreach are to awake the public awareness, start public discussions and participate in the outreach about iGEM. Also we want to promote the open source principle behind iGEM, arouse interest and hopefully prevented fear when facing the principles of synthetic biology. Therefore we organized and participated in various events. Check out our Human Practices section for more information.

Furthermore we provided a guide to do it yourself nanobiotechnology for fellow scientists, with detailed step by step instructions.

Achievments

With the BioBricks submitted by our team we enable a fast and selective BPA degradation in E.coli, a highly sensitive and selective NAD⁺ detection that facilitates a versatile NAD⁺ bioassay for future iGEM teams and the immobilization of S-layer fusion proteins, which implies the use of our S-layer proteins as nanobiotechnological building blocks.

As our approach is cell-free we can guarantee a high biosafety of our biosensor and were able to create a rather simple model for the BPA detection.

Check out our Achievenment page, if you want to know about further achievements of our team.