Team:Wisconsin-Madison/syntheticbiology

Bacterial microcompartments (BMC) are tiny protein-assembled compartments which are newly discovered in many bacteria strains. Their existence in cells enables bacteria to compact certain reactions within small defined space such that the enzyme efficiency can be increased due to folded substrate concentration and also those generated mediates from toxic reactions are separated from the rest of cell contains. Pdu microcompartment, which was originally found in Salmonella enteric and Citrobactor freundii, encloses metabolisms that utilize propanediol as a carbon resource. Literatures and former USTC iGEM 2010 team showed that empty microcompartments can be successfully assembled in E. coli and some genes are suggested to be able to direct proteins to outer surface or inner parts of the microcompartments respectively. Based on these findings, we UW-Madison 2011 iGEM team believe that BMC has the potentiality to dramatically improve bacteria production efficiency and can be further remodeled to conduct new functions. And so far, we are trying to assemble pdu microcompartments in E.coli, characterize the assembly rates and make E.coli produce biofuels such as butanol and fatty acids.

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