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From 2011.igem.org

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Revision as of 11:47, 1 June 2011

Insert random project ideas here, no matter how crazy. These are not (yet) ideas we're seriously considering, but just whatever came into our heads at some point...

• Last year's winner used DNA as a scaffold to latch proteins onto, via DNA binding domains. Could two such domains be used to link two replicons together, for purposes of increasing recombination frequency?

• E. coli lacks a Type II secretion system. (This is one of the ways bacteria can export a protein.) Add one! Test by export of a protein with signal added. (Comment from CF: actually, E. coli does possess a type II secretion system but it is normally inactive. When activated, it leads to secretion of a chitinase. You could use our BRIDGE system to make the necessary genetic modifications to have this pathway switched on in normal growth.)

• Create a juxtacrine signalling pathway for E. coli. Probably impossible due to lipopolysaccharide. (Juxtacrine signalling is signalling by physical contact.) (Comment from CF: there have been some bizarre recent papers about bacteria being connected together by 'nanotubes', as well as a growing body of literature about electrically conductive pili (nanowires), but I'm not sure either of these systems is well enough characterized yet to form the basis of a project. Comment from LK: I think this idea is similar to neural networks - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_network - if that was possible to model using E. coli, it would be awesome.)

• (Chris French's idea) A sensor based on fusion of antibody domain to a signal transducing domain.

• Use the BRIDGE protocol to edit the chromosome of E. coli to report when a plasmid has been successfully introduced, e.g. by DNA binding proteins that would recognise the plasmid and cause some sort of effect.