Team:TU-Munich/Project/Phytoremediation

For the last centuries the world population increased constantly and together with the change in lifestyle caused by the industrialization led to an increased contamination of the environment with an increasing number and amount of pollutants.

Bioremediation was defined as "the process of judiciously exploiting biological processes to minimize an unwanted environmental impact; usually it is the removal of a contaminant form the biosphere." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/0471238961.0209151816180914.a01/abstract Prince, 2000 Phytoremediation is the concept of removing these pollutans either directly by plants themselves or by specialized bacteria living in an symbiosis with plants. There is a multitude of different pollutants that are primary targets for remediation such as Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), insecticides such as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), heavy metals such as cadmius or mercury or phrmaceutical products such as diclofenac or ethynyl estradiol .

Previous Work (some examples)

• MIT 2007 https://2007.igem.org/MIT

--> Filtering Mercury in E.coli

• Bilkent UNAM Turkey (https://2011.igem.org/Team:Bilkent_UNAM_Turkey/Project_Description)

--> Degrading TNT in Algae

• Bielefeld 2012 (Laccase)

--> Degrading Hormones in different organisms -> Cooperation with LMU

Choice of Chassis:

• water should be natural environment
• autotrophic
• easy handling

Text

1. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/0471238961.0209151816180914.a01/abstract Prince, 2000 Prince, R. C. (2000). Bioremediation. Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology.