"
Team:SCUT/Project
From 2013.igem.org
Background
Generally, synthetic biology constructs many devices to achieve some human-defined functions, such as oscillators, bio-logical gates, bistable switches. In the process of system construction, we often meet such bottlenecks as decreased robustness or potential complexity in the single cell, which is owing to the overburden of metabolism in single cell and complexity of fine-tuning. Thus, a preferential method is the utilizing of communication between cells to form microbial consortia, which help different species to share the steps of synthetic function.
Overview
Where there is nature, there is communication. Mode of communication varies widely. Both intracellular and intercellular communication mechanisms in nature are looked to as a source of inspiration and instruction for engineered nanocommunication.
This year, Team SCUT aims to reconstruct and model the simplest communication in nature, like a flow of information between eukaryotes and prokaryotes through olfactory. Due to this, we created E.cerevisiae, a sophisticated signal transport system between E.coli and S.cerevisiae. E.cerevisiae consists of two parts, one is odorant sensing, the other is oscillating odorant.
In odorant sensing system, we require to fabricate a kind of dedicated biomimetic nose for our yeast and single out a special and adapted volatile to serve as their “language”. Base on this, we utilize a complex and 7-transmembrane receptors，GPCR，Odr-10, as the nose (Learn more...). On the other hand, the producer is assigned to periodically distribute a special volatile—diacetyl , as the language, with a stable oscillation circuit, which defines the meaning of the signal (Learn more...). Finally, we would like to achieve the communication, at least one way communication through odorant between E.coli and S.cerevisiae by this system.
What’s more, symbiosis has long been a central theme in microbiology，there have been many studies and applications on the symbioses between microorganisms such as producing various fermented foods by these microbial interaction. Therefore, we hope that when this two systems work efficiently, it will help us have a deeper understanding of the communication between prokaryotes and eukaryotes for the further research on symbiosis.
See our future work...
