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From 2013.igem.org

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Chassis

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Lactobacillus chassis

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L. plantarum?

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Lactobacillus plantarum is a gram-positive lactic acid bacterium, present naturally in dairy products, as well as in the gastrointestinal tract1.

We chose to use L. plantarum as a chassis , because of its unique ability to grow and adapt to a large number of niches2. Studies have shown that L. plantarum has the capacity to optimize its genetic material in order to adapt to different environments, especially those with high levels of carbohydrates2. Another special property of L. plantarum is that it has a high tolerance towards acids, and it is present in many fermentative processes2.

These characteristics among others make it a potential candidate for its use in different industries. Using recombinant DNA technology, this bacterium could be applied to food industries as a starter or marker in fermentative processes, in healthcare industry as a probiotic or in biofuel production2. As part of our project, we will be explore the potential of L. plantarum as a probiotic, and produce biobricks that can join all the beneficial properties of different probiotics and express it in our own chassis.

Vector design

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REFERENCES:

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1Lee, J., Halgerson, J., Kim, J., and O’Sullivan, D. (2007). Comparative Sequence Analysis of Plasmids from Lactobacillus delbrueckii and Construction of a Shuttle Cloning Vector. [Online]. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1932812/ on April 16, 2013.

2Siezen, R. and Hylckama, J. (2011). Genomic diversity and versatility of Lactobacillus plantarum, a natural metabolic engineer. [Online]. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3271238/ on April 16, 2013.