This summer we engineered the nematode worm C. elegans to build a bioremediation toolkit.
To get a quick overview of our project, take a look of the video to the left where Adrian, Stephanie, Tony and Allister give a rundown of the summer objectives.
Transgenic Chemotaxis
The principal goal of our project, modifying the worm's normal chemotaxis mechanism to increase it's affinity for toxic chemicals, was accomplished by creating genetic constructs that were then injected into C. elegans worms.
A breakdown of the findings can be found on the results page, while the video gallery offers a glimpse of our worms in action!
Reporter System
When targeting a pollutant, we researched an effective method to assess the concentration of chemical present. Our findings are outline here.
As a first step, we successfully engineered a worm to express a cyan fluorescent protein in a chemotaxis neuron!
Biodegradation Mechanism
A key component of the bioremediation toolkit is a biodegradation mechanism. We examined the pathway for breakdown of naphthalene and incorporated this into our design.
All of our parts are available to be used in your future synthetic biology project. We submitted 10 modular and 16 composite constructs to the iGEM parts registry. For future iGEM teams, we also included a few intermediate constructs to build from.
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