Team:SJTU-BioX-Shanghai

SJTU-BioX-Shanghai iGEM team is designing a set of Codon-Switches that regulate target protein biosynthesis (translation).

In our Rare-Codon Switch, the translation of the protein can be finely turned up/down with the control of the number of rare codons (Reporter) and the different strength of tRNA induction (Modulator).

Besides, our device can be made into switches that can be turned on/off without background noise in two ways. One is to use stop codon as the controlling element, the Stop-Codon Switch. The other is to use any codon but the original start codon to initiate translation, the Initial-Codon Switch.

Our design has expanded the regulating tools for synthetic biology, introduced a brand-new way to incorporate point mutation into protein and study the important domains of a protein. See more about project applications, click here.

Developed tRNA and aminoacyl tRNA synthetase (aaRS) from the natural biological system into the Modulator. The function of this device has been fully characterized. Brand-new features of the device are also discovered.

Constructed 2 Modulators (including 8 biobricks) and 13 Reporter biobricks to test our controlling system.

Modified pre-existing reporter genes luciferase and RFP and created a series of new reporter genes.

Built our system in silic and demonstrated the reliability of the model through our experiment results.

Analyzed the structure of 18 aaRS with structural biological methods. Designed structures of 14 modified aaRS deprived of their anticodon recognition ability.

Designed two different models for how our device can be applied to controlling metabolic networks, which expands the regulating tools for synthetic biology.

Developed two brand-new ways that facilitate the study of protein structure. One for incorporating point mutation into protein. The other for producing truncated proteins to help study the important protein domains.

Design our Human Practice Project -- T-PostCards to promote our views on synthetic biology through communications and connections.

Attended the 2011 China Meet Up and presented our project idea to other iGEMer and advisors.