Team:SydneyUni Australia

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Brief Project Description

Background

1,2-dichloroethane (DCA) is part of a family of chlorinated hydrocarbons that are primarily derived from industrial solvents such as tetrachloroethene (PCE) and trichloroethene (TCE). Some of these organochlorines are toxic, carcinogenic and generally nasty.
DCA is a soluble and mobile contaminant of the groundwater in Botany Bay, Sydney, but also elsewhere around the world.
Conventional treatment involves significant costs, such as the pumping and heat-stripping of groundwater at Botany Bay. A biological alternative may be cheaper and more effective.
A suite of techniques (including sampling of contaminated sites, growth in bioreactors with selective conditions and protein engineering) have led to an understanding that there are two primary pathways of DCA-degradation (Fig. 1).

Goals

Construct a BioBrick-compatible vector inspired by the broad host range vector, pBBR1MCS2.
Construct and compare two of the proposed pathways of DCA biodegradation.
Characterise the components of the DCA-degradation pathway for admission into the Registry of Standard Parts.
(If we get time!) Demonstrate the integration of our the pathway in the chromosome of Pseudomonas stutzeri via natural transformation and site-specific recombination.