Collaboration

The Paris Bettencourt-Calgary iGEM collaboration started last June when a few members from each team met at the SB6.0 synbio conference in London. After a few beers and lab stories, we learned that despite coming from the opposite sides of the globe, we were using synthetic biology to build biosensors to sense DNA. Although our systems were targeted to different problems, we were struck by a number of commonalities between these projects. Please see the Figure 1 for a breakdown of these differences.

As we talked our projects, we recalled how we could not find DNA biosensor parts in the registry. Moreover, we complained about the lack of organization of biosensors in the parts registry. The veteran iGEMers on each team recalled how biosensors had consistently finished as grand prize winners in previous years of iGEM. We were curious about how biosensors have evolved since the beginning of iGEM and how our projects fit into the context of the iGEM Parts Registry.

SensiGEM - A biosensor database

We decided to collaborate to answer these questions. Since our initial meeting in London, members of each team have conferenced weekly on Skype. After accustoming ourselves to the eight hour time difference, we developed SensiGEM, a joint database in which we catalogued all the biosensors in the history of iGEM.

Before sinking our teeth into past Wikis, we realized that we had different definitions of biosensors. We asked each other a fundamental question: What is a biosensor? We developed the following definition:

A biosensor is an engineered system that relies on a biological systems or components to detect and report a condition. The condition(s) detected and reported could encompass an environmental, biological, chemical or synthetic aspect or compound in the sensor’s environment or surroundings.

Once we agreed on the nature of biosensors, we split up the Wikis from 2007 onward between Calgary and Paris Bettencourt. We analyzed every Wiki since 2007 by hand, incorporating the projects which matched our biosensor definition into the collaborative SensiGEM database. We designed this database with future iGEM teams in mind, with tools for efficient navigation biosensors according to inputs, outputs, and their intended application. We foresee this database as a resource which future iGEM teams can contribute their biosensor projects.

Lessons from SensiGEM

We did some preliminary analysis of the date in SensiGEM to see how our projects fix into the current iGEM biosensor landscape. Please see Figures 2 and 3 below.

In Figure 2, we can see that the Calgary approach of using non-living, in vitro protein components is not typical of biosensor projects in iGEM. We justify this approach for two reasons. Firstly, we envision components such as our robust ferritin reporter as being more stable in field applications compared to systems in living cells. Secondly, such a system overcomes potential concerns of deploying synthetic microorganisms in the broader environment since there are no living components in our sensor.

From Figure 3, we have can see that fewer than 10 DNA biosensors were added to the iGEM Parts Registry. This means that fewer than one percent of projects since 2007 were DNA biosensors! Since Paris Bettencourt and Calgary are introducing two novel components DNA sensing components, we are significantly expanding the variety of DNA biosensor tools in iGEM. Moreover, each of our respective systems are modular and can be modified to sense most any DNA segment of interest, which means that other teams could use our systems in different applications.

Looking toward finals

Given the similarities between each of our systems in overall function, we have begun development of parts to repurpose the each team's system for each other's problem. In doing so, we hope to explore how our systems are platform technologies which can be applied to a whole variety of problems.