Team:Virginia/Project Overview

The Problem

There have always been public concerns over the safety of synthetic biology projects. Many of these concerns result from the possibility that bacteria may replicate or mutate beyond a scientist’s control. Efforts to increase the safety of bacterial chassis have thus far focused on engineering more reliable kill-switches or on reducing the expression of certain genes. We present bacterial minicells as a safe, alternative chassis that cannot proliferate (for lack of chromosomal DNA), but that still retain surface proteins from the parent cell and their ability to express plasmid DNA.

An Alternative Solution

Our initial investigation led us to a forgotten discovery from the 1950’s—the bacterial minicell. Minicells are small, achromosomal products of aberrant cell division. Because they lack chromosomes , they cannot replicate, mutate, or express virulent bacteria genes. However, they still express transfected plasmids, which means that minicells remain fully compatible with standardized biobrick parts. While largely neglected for decades, minicells are only now resurfacing, in the wake of the recent, explosive growth of the modern biotechnology industry. The goals of our project were to increase iGEM access to minicells and to modify the surface membranes of minicells to further increase safety.