Team:UT Dallas/project part1

From 2013.igem.org

We have chosen two inducible repressors for use in this project, FruR and CscR. Sucrose is a disaccharide composed of glucose and fructose. The sucrose is converted to lactic acid by S.Mutans which leads to plaque formation and tooth decay. We will be using operon repressors for both sucrose and fructose to detect the concentrations of both of them. By using the repressor systems, we can detect the formation of plaque and prevent the formation of cavities. The repressor systems can be added with nspC to break down the formation of biofilm. We have chosen two repressors for use in this project: FruR, CscR.

How They Work:The FruR gene encodes a protein which normally binds to and represses the fructose operon. When fructose is present in the system, it binds to the FruR protein and prevents it from repressing the operon promoter.
CscR works in the similar way, but it will bind to sucrose instead.

What We Did:We isolated these repressors, FruR and CscR, in order to create a construct to detect low levels of sucrose and high levels of fructose. By using the repressor systems, we can detect the formation of plaque and prevent the formation of cavities.