Tokyo_tech2013 did experiment class for high school students and enquete to public people as human practice. Then, we noticed that to be easier to understand synthetic biology for general people, we need to prepare an interesting story. So, we thought it, life of ninja.

[Fig1. Human Practice experiment]
We did experiment class for high school students.

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[Fig2. Human Practice enquete]
We did enqute in May festibal at University of Tokyo.

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Ninja is a Japan’s ancient warrior. Usually Ninja disguises himself as an ordinary civilian in public. Once he detects Samurai who is the assassination target, he immediately gets ready for battle. He defeats Samurai with shuriken, throwing knives.

In our project, E. ninja heads the cast. E. civilian and E. samurai produce their own signal molecules. Depending on the received signal, E. ninja changes two states: “mimic state” and “attack state”. We aim to design the circuit that contains a bi-stable state and a signal dependent switching part.

However, in the case that uses both of signal molecules together, these signals induce a crosstalk. This crosstalk causes wrong state changing. To realize accurate switching, by network engineering, we have circumvented the crosstalk.

[Fig3. Crosstalk assay]
This graph shows that Plux/tet hybrid promoter can suppress the crosstalk.

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[Fig4. M13 phage plaque]
We confirmed inducible M13 release by plaque assay.

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E. ninja releases M13 phage as shuriken, when E. ninja is on attack state and receiving E. samurai signal. M13 phage infects E. samurai and causes their suicide.

We have also made second-life of ninja. After ninja retires his ninja job, he starts farming in the village. We aim to create farmer E. coli, which can synthesize plant hormone depending on soil environment.

[Fig5. Bioassay of plant]
We learned methods for quantitative analysis for cytokinin, a plant hormone, through bioassay of cucumber seed sprouts.

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