Team:UQ-Australia/Project

From 2011.igem.org

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Revision as of 03:09, 5 October 2011

The human circadian rhythm drives many important processes in the body in accordance with the sleep/wake cycle. A characteristic of this biological clock is the periodic oscillation of gene expression. Current parts in the Registry designed to regulate periodic oscillations of gene expression have shown limited success.

Here we demonstrate a biological clock being standardised as a set of BioBrick parts.

Our network is controlled by an engineered promoter, Plac/ara, which features both an activator and a repressor domain. This controls the production of downstream genes to activate other inducible promoters, pBAD and GlnAp2, eventually leading to the production of a repressor protein, lacI, which inhibits Plac/ara, resulting in oscillatory expression. This project shows the feasibility of standardising the biological clock in E. coli and grounds further development for applications in regulated drug/hormone delivery and ion channel control.

Project Details

The project has been split into categories:

Development of BioBricks
- Experimental methods to be fully recorded in the Notebook
Modelling of the circuit
- Modelling of the kinetics of the oscillating cells
- Modelling of the synchronisation of oscillating cells
Thorough evaluation of the safety issues regarding UQ-Autralia's entry in iGEM
Human practices
- Raising awareness of synthetic biology
- Providing a solution to the patenting issue that iGEM is facing

Together, this forms the UQ-Australia project for the 2011 iGEM.

Motivation and Background

In humans, the circadian rhythm is controlled by several core genes that operate via a series of feedback loops (Figure 1). A transcription–translation negative-feedback loop powers the system, with a delay between the transcription of these genes and the negative feedback being a key factor that allows the system to oscillate [1]

Figure 1: The gene network responsible for establishing the circadian rhythm in humans [1]

Modelling

Details of this is on the Modelling page.

Safety

Details of this is on the Safety page.

Human Practices

The Human Practices section is on the Human Practices

References

[1] Gallego, M & Virshup, DM 2007. "Post-translational modifications regulate the ticking of the circadian clock", Molecular Cell Biology, vol. 8, pp. 139-148.

@@ Line 32: / Line 32: @@
-=== <span style="color:#D4A017">Experimental Work</span> ===
+=== <span style="color:#D4A017">Motivation and Background</span> ===
-Outcomes of experimental work are to be recorded here.
+In humans, the circadian rhythm is controlled by several core genes that operate via a series of feedback loops (Figure 1). A transcription–translation negative-feedback loop powers the system, with a delay between the transcription of these genes and the negative feedback being a key factor that allows the system to oscillate [1]
+<b>Figure 1: The gene network responsible for establishing the circadian rhythm in humans [1]</b>
+[[File:Mammalian.png]]
 === <span style="color:#D4A017">Modelling</span> ===
@@ Line 49: / Line 53: @@
 The Human Practices section is on the [[Team:UQ-Australia/Human_Practices|Human Practices]]
+=== <span style="color:#D4A017">References</span>===
+[1] Gallego, M & Virshup, DM 2007. "Post-translational modifications regulate the ticking of the circadian clock", <i>Molecular Cell Biology</i>, vol. 8, pp. 139-148.