Team:UNIST Korea

From 2011.igem.org

Synthetic Microbes

Synthetic Microbes are gaining increased importance in 21 st century. Synthetic Microbes are more promising hosts for fuel production, bioremediation and many other potential processes. There is an increased dependence on the synthetic microbes even for certain basic needs such as medicine and fuels. However, synthetic microbes do not experience a warm welcome from the general public because they are believed to endanger the environment.

Synthetic Microbes Can escape Recently, microbe-driven fermentation products are gaining increased importance. However, release of these microbes to the open environment would pose increasing threat to the society due to the possibility of changes expected in the indigenous microbial population. Hence, we have engineered a synthetic self-killing system for the famous industrial workhorse, Escherichia coli. High temperature (37⁰C), native quorum sensing molecule (AI-2) and the darkness present in the fermentor will keep the self-killing system turned off. Environmental signals such as low temperature (25 ⁰C), foreign quorum sensing molecules and light encountered by the E. coli outside of the fermentor would trigger the self-killing device. Unlike other lysis device, we have introduced a novel self-killing device that chops up the DNA. Thus, this system would not only favor cell death but also ensure that all the genetic materials are destroyed and guarantee that there would be no horizontal gene transfer.''

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