Team:Kyoto

From 2011.igem.org

Summary

We created new E.coli which hunts and eats insects. As such we named it Carnivorous E.coli. Carnivorous E.coli emits light when it is hungry. This will attract insects to it. Then, it secretes a viscous substance to catch the insects. The insects caught are digested by the protease and chitinase in the secretion. Long story short, our Carnivorous E.coli can hunt!

Project Hunger

It is a burden for the E.coli to emit light. This can be reduced by using nitrogen regulatory proteins, NtrB and NtrC, which activate a certain promoter under the condition that supply of nitrogen is not enough.

Project Luminescence

There are many ways to attract bugs, for instance using pheromone, but it is difficult for E.coli to synthesize complex compounds like pheromone. Carnivorous E.coli emits light and attracts bugs like glowworms by using Bioluciferase from 2010 Cambridge.

Project Digestion

An insect body is covered with a hard integument containing chitin mainly. To decompose the integument, we used ChiA genes, which encode chitinase. In order to measure the chitinase activity of culture supernatant, we evaluated the effects of medium and cell growth.