Team:METU Turkey/index.html

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<p id="u19146-3"><span>&nbsp; </span><span id="u19146-2">To protect the bees against living microorganisms that are dangerous for the bees is our aim. We made a research and we realized that bees recently suffer from insufficient feed.</span></p>
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<p id="u19146-3"><span>&nbsp; </span><span id="u19146-2">To protect the bees against living microorganisms that are dangerous for the bees is our aim. We made a research and we realized that bees recently suffer from insufficient feed. Since beekeepers prefer to feed the bees with high&#45;fructose corn syrup or sucrose because of the low prices, bees started to suffer from insufficient nutrition. Bees lost their ability of fighting against the pathogens, parasites and pesticides and this situation creates a major problem, colony losses. P&#45;coumaric acid is the most important substance as one of these nutritions.</span></p>
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<p>Since beekeepers prefer to feed the bees with high&#45;fructose corn syrup or sucrose because of the low prices, bees started to suffer from insufficient nutrition. Bees lost their ability of fighting against the pathogens, parasites and pesticides and this situation creates a major problem, colony losses. P&#45;coumaric acid is the most important substance as one of these nutritions.</p>
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<p>P&#45;coumaric acid, a monomer of sporopollenin, is the essential substance for the bees’ diet.</p>
<p>P&#45;coumaric acid, a monomer of sporopollenin, is the essential substance for the bees’ diet.</p>
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<p id="u3292-2"><span id="u3292">{font-size: 65%}&nbsp;In this year, in the kill switch part of our project, we use an mRNA interferase, MazF, which cleaves mRNA’s at specific sequences. In our kill switch, we used anti&#45;sense RNA principle as a template. According to this principle, MazF, which is constantly produced via a constitutive promoter, is got inactivated by Anti&#45;MazF construct. In order to trigger this mechanism, we used IPTG, a harmless molecule for the bee which at the same time does not appear in the honey too. When IPTG is present in the environment, LacI is inhibited by IPTG and therefore promoter gets activated. With the activated promoter of it, Anti&#45;MazF is produced and inactive MazF. As long as IPTG exists, MazF gets inactivated continuously; therefore, the bacteria maintain their lives. On the other hand, if bacteria exists in a IPTG&#45;free environment, Anti&#45;MazF producing stops, which leads to MazF producing and bacteria get killed by MazF.</span></p>
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<p id="u3292-2"><span id="u3292">&nbsp;In this year, in the kill switch part of our project, we use an mRNA interferase, MazF, which cleaves mRNA’s at specific sequences. In our kill switch, we used anti&#45;sense RNA principle as a template. According to this principle, MazF, which is constantly produced via a constitutive promoter, is got inactivated by Anti&#45;MazF construct. In order to trigger this mechanism, we used IPTG, a harmless molecule for the bee which at the same time does not appear in the honey too. When IPTG is present in the environment, LacI is inhibited by IPTG and therefore promoter gets activated. With the activated promoter of it, Anti&#45;MazF is produced and inactive MazF. As long as IPTG exists, MazF gets inactivated continuously; therefore, the bacteria maintain their lives. On the other hand, if bacteria exists in a IPTG&#45;free environment, Anti&#45;MazF producing stops, which leads to MazF producing and bacteria get killed by MazF.</span></p>
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<p id="u3292-4">In this circuit, we used the parts K143053 as a constitutive promoter and SpoVG RBS due to their more efficient works in Bacillus subtilis. Besides these two, we used the part I732820 to produce LacI, but we had to change the RBS of this system since RBSelowitz is less effective in Bacillus then RBSspoVG. With this change in the activity of the RBS, we can compete with the production of MazF.</p>
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Latest revision as of 03:25, 5 October 2013

Home

Our Project Description:

 Taking a major role in pollination, bees are one of the most important organisms within an ecosystem. However their populations are in serious decline. Colony Collapse Disorder has been found as the most common cause of the disappearance of bees in large numbers. Some pathogens like parasitic fungi and a pesticide called imidacloprid are the leading reasons of CCD. In this study, our aim is to decrease the number of hives affected by chemical compounds such as imidacloprid. Our plan is to turn the mutualistic bacteria living in bees' guts into a shield mechanism to protect the bees against these factors. A protein CYP6G1 found in Drosophilia melanogaster has the ability to degrade imidacloprid into harmless substances. Moreover, coumaric acid increases the general immunity of bees against harmful components and parasitic organisms and we aim to increase the level of coumaric acid in bees' guts. The main objective of this study is the transformation of the genes coding for these two proteins to Bacillus subtilis, which mutualistically live in bees' guts.
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