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Team:KU Leuven/Project/E.coligy
From 2013.igem.org
Secret garden
Congratulations! You've found our secret garden! Follow the instructions below and win a great prize at the World jamboree!
- A video shows that two of our team members are having great fun at our favourite company. Do you know the name of the second member that appears in the video?
- For one of our models we had to do very extensive computations. To prevent our own computers from overheating and to keep the temperature in our iGEM room at a normal level, we used a supercomputer. Which centre maintains this supercomputer? (Dutch abbreviation)
- We organised a symposium with a debate, some seminars and 2 iGEM project presentations. An iGEM team came all the way from the Netherlands to present their project. What is the name of their city?
Now put all of these in this URL:https://2013.igem.org/Team:KU_Leuven/(firstname)(abbreviation)(city), (loose the brackets and put everything in lowercase) and follow the very last instruction to get your special jamboree prize!
E. coligy
Our BanAphids produce Methyl Salicylate (MeS) and E-β-farnesene (EBF), a phytohormone and a pheromone, respectively. This will offer the plants a protection mechanism. MeS will activate plant defence systems and attract natural aphid predators and parasitoids. Furthermore, EBF will repel aphids off the plant and, as a secondary effect, also attract natural aphid predators and parasitoids. MeS and EBF are naturally used in the communication between plants, predators and aphids. Consequentely, our BanAphids will blend into the ecosystem and enhance the communication between plants, predators and aphids.If you want to expand your knowledge about these natural occuring communication systems, you can read the background page.
Various experiments with both plants and insects were performed by us. In the wetlab page. This validates that our BanAphids will work as intended and allows us to optimise our system.
We also modelled the impact of our BanAphids on the environment, which can be found in the Modelling tab, under the under Ecosystem level.The information obtained here is useful to plan field experiments and gives essential information to future costumers.
Aphid infested Rose plant (Mauro Mandrioli)
Background
The effects of MeS and EBF on the ecosystem are tested in the E. coligy wetlab section. If you want to know more about what is already known about these components you are invited to check out this background page. We also modelled the potential impact of our BanAphids on the ecosystem.
Wetlab
We wanted to perform behavioural experiments with aphids and aphid predators such as ladybugs and the green lacewing. Therefore we presented our project to several companies: Biobest, a worldwide leader in biological pollination and sustainable crop management, and pcfruit, a company focussing on new crop protection methods. They were both very enthousiastic about our project and we formed a collaboration with Biobest and pc fruit to carry out our E. coligy experiments at their site. On this page you will find more information about these experiments.
