Team:Nevada

From 2013.igem.org

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A recent approach to combating bacterial pathogens takes advantage of naturally occurring virus proteins known as endolysins, which are toxic to specific bacteria. The use of endolysins has no known resistance formation and relatively little disruption to native flora, making it preferable to antibiotics and harsh chemical treatments. While it has been approved for uses ranging from medicine to food safety, the use of endolysins in agriculture is still an emerging field. Most of the work that has been done using endolysins to fight plant disease focuses on gram-positive bacteria. This is largely due to the fact that gram negative bacteria possess an outer lipid membrane that prevents access to the peptidoglycan layer, which is what endolysins degrade. Our team plans to create antibacterial treatments that can effectively control a wide range of gram-negative plant pathogens by developing a method to disrupt the outer membrane and allow endolysins into the periplasmic space. This new method must be less harmful to plants than the current detergents and chaotropes used to permeabalize outer membranes in vitro. We also aim to develop a system that uses dual fluorescence to easily detect outer membrane disruption. This new system will be critical in ensuring the success of our project, as well as any future studies on the efficacy of gram-negative endolysins.
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''Project Description''
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Lysesavers: A New Approach to Fighting Bacterial Diseases
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Current methods of treating bacterial pathogens in both plant and animal systems all have their disadvantages. For instance, popular methods for controlling diseases in major crop plants include the use of antibiotics, harsh chemical treatments such as copper sprays, and complete removal of infected plants. An increasing number of deleterious bacteria are developing resistance to antibiotic treatment.  In the case of pathogens such as "Erwinia amylovora", which targets members of the "Rosaceae" family such pear and apple trees, bacteria have also been shown to develop resistance to chemical treatments.
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A more recent approach to combating bacterial disease takes advantage of naturally occurring viruses that are toxic to the specific bacteria which are targeted as hosts for lysis. Bacteriophage technology has been approved for uses ranging from agriculture to food safety, possessing advantages over other treatments including a lack of resistance formation and relatively little disruption to native flora. However, there are still concerns about the use of phages as antibacterial treatments including the possible immunogenic effects of using self-replicating biological agents that can potentially evolve; the low virulence of many phages due to poor adsorption properties, poor replication characteristics, etc.; and the very narrow host range of all bacteriophages.
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To address these disadvantages, our team plans to develop an antibacterial treatment that uses only the phage proteins involved in bacterial cell wall degradation rather than the entire phage. It has been demonstrated that these muralytic enzymes known as endolysins can lyse specific bacterial cells when applied as a purified protein product. The target range of several endolysins that target gram-negative bacteria has also been broadened through the use of chemicals that degrade the outer lipid membrane, allowing the endolysins to attack the peptidoglycan layer, which is highly conserved across most gram-negative bacteria.  
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Our project aims to create bactericides that can effectively control a wide range of gram-negative pathogens by coupling purified endolysins with a method of permeabalizing the outer membrane of target bacterial cells that is less harmful than the detergents and chaotropes typically used "in vitro.We will also develop a system that uses fluorescence to easily detect outer membrane permeabilization. This new system will be critical in ensuring the success of our project, which focuses on three endolysins which naturally target "E. amylovora", "Xanthamonas campestris", or "Pseudomonas aeruginosa", as well as any future studies on the efficacy of gram-negative endolysins.
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|[[Image:Nevada_team.png|right|frame|Your team picture]]
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|align="center"|[[Team:Nevada | Team Nevada]]
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<!--- The Mission, Experiments --->
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{| style="color:#1b2c8a;background-color:#0c6;" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" border="1" bordercolor="#fff" width="62%" align="center"
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!align="center"|[[Team:Nevada|Home]]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Nevada/Team|Team]]
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!align="center"|[https://igem.org/Team.cgi?year=2013&team_name=Nevada Official Team Profile]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Nevada/Project|Project]]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Nevada/Parts|Parts Submitted to the Registry]]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Nevada/Modeling|Modeling]]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Nevada/Notebook|Notebook]]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Nevada/Safety|Safety]]
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!align="center"|[[Team:Nevada/Attributions|Attributions]]
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Latest revision as of 01:50, 28 September 2013