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From 2011.igem.org

Radio iGEM

Radio iGEM started out small with our desire to broadcast the music we listen to in the lab to other iGEM teams using the Twitter hashtag #RadioiGEM. Quickly enough, this developed into a full-blown podcast that is also broadcast live. In Radio iGEM, we talk about all things synthetic biology and get guest speakers to discuss their projects. As part of the show, we also play free music.

College interns

As part of our project, we had two A-level students from two different colleges come in and help us with the science and art aspects of our project.

Kiran is about to start studying for his A-levels. He arrived on the 3rd of August and remained with us until the 12th of August. In this time he learned a lot in the lab, even contributing towards some of our results (see the study on E. coli survivability in soil). Kiran will be pioneering his college's efforts towards their participation in next year's High school iGEM jamboree. Watch our interview with Kiran below:

Poppy is a soon-to-be A level student. She joined us for a week in early September and made some plant plates.

Human practices panel discussion

As part of our human practices process, we held two panels. The first panel consisted of Prof Richard Kitney, Dr Tom Ellis, Dr Guy-Bart Stan, Charlotte Jarvis and Kirsten Jensen.

The panel addressed many different questions that we later used to inform our design.

Could the bacteria impact the germination of the seeds?
The coat itself would not be prohibiting germination. It is possible to design the coat sufficiently well to ensure that this would not happen. In addition, seeds normally germinate in soil full of bacteria that do not prevent germination.

How can we ensure that the auxin does not kill the plants?
We will be able to vary the inoculum of bacteria in the coat. We will get an experimental estimate of the auxin production, which will help us estimate the ideal number of bacteria to be contained in the seed coat. While a weak promoter may be better for constitutive expression of auxin, it will be easier to weaken the promoter later. We have used an insulator sequence to separate the promoter from the RBS so that we will be able to replace the promoter very easily. This may also contribute to the fine-tuning of expression and thus help us make sure that auxin is expressed at ideal concentrations. The worst case scenario consists of the auxin producing genes being transferred to other bacteria that become pathogenic. However, this could be tested exclusively beforehand and the infrastructure for this separate development and safety testing stage is already in place. In addition, unlike synthetic auxin, natural auxins such as IAA have a short half-life and degrade rapidly.

What is the risk-benefit relationship of our implementation?
In our implementation, we are trying to improve already existing practices. We do have to take a certain risk to combat desertification. However, is putting GM bacteria into soil worth speeding up the acacia tree planting process? How much does this really help? While GM bacteria may pose a risk, introducing foreign plant species that also show drought resistance and grow faster than acacia trees can be extremely risky and introduction of foreign species into ecosystems has already had negative consequences all over the world. This effect is likely to be worsened by the fact that we would be introducing the foreign species into an already damaged ecosystem. We may also be able to plant other fast growing plants at the same time as planting our coated seeds to hold the soil down while the seeds are growing.

Should we be using B. subtilis or E. coli as our chassis?
B. subtilis spores spread very easily over long distances and may thus be blown into different ecosystems where they may have negative effects. On the other hand, its spores would be easier to integrate into a seed coat. E. coli is not as easy to integrate into the seed coat. However, it does not form spores and is therefore very likely to stay inside the ecosystem we introduce the microbes into. We have already shown that E. coli is able to survive in non-sterile soil for more than two weeks and that it can pass on its plasmid to other bacteria, enabling them to express GFP and antibiotic resistance. By using E. coli as our chassis, we can be sure that the bacteria will survive in the soil for a reasonably long period of time but not spread as rapidly as B. subtilis spores would. At the same time, we will be preventing plasmid transfer using the BacTrap. We should be able to overcome the technical challenge of putting E. coli into the seed coat.

Would we be able to get rid of the bacteria once they are in the soil?
The kill switch is never 100% effective and the bacteria will lose the plasmid. In addition, bacteria killed by kill switches still leave behind DNA that can be conjugated by other, naturally occurring bacteria. We may not be able to take the bacteria back out of the environment after they have been distributed into soil. Instead, we will be aiming to prevent spread of the plasmid. We will be using E. coli as our chassis, which should be outcompeted in the soil and our BacTrap device will be used to prevent plasmid conjugation.