Team:NEFU China
At the stages of high-burden tumors or metastasis, cancer patients may suffer from acute uric acid nephropathy due to rapid dissolution of tumor cells caused by conventional treatments, such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
To solve the issue, we designed a novel and controllable system in E.coli Nissle 1917, so we can kill the tumor cell in a gentle way. We also have a suicide system to make sure it’s a safe therapy.
The bacterium releases anti-tumor drugs in response to changes of uric acid levels, preventing the trouble of manual assessment and reduce the potential of acute uric acid nephropathy.Therefore, the tumor cells can be safely dissolved under the conditions of uric acid fluctuation within a physiologically tolerable range.
Additionally, we designed a normal tissue-specific cytosine deaminase expressing system, which can suppress bacterial growth with 5-Flucytosine administration.
To enhance our bacteria the ability of targeting tumor, we made bacteria express ftnA-M, a variant of ferritin iron storage protein, to attract engineered bacteria to tumor sites when exposed to a magnetic field.
To prevent loss of our plasmids, we designed a plasmid protection module. We block a housekeeping gene of E. coli, and insert its coding sequence in one of our vectors. As a result, the bacteria can only survive when harboring our vector.
Sponsors
Contact us
iGEM-NEFU_China2019
E-mail:nefu_igem2019@163.com
No.26 Hexing Road, Xiangfang District, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province 150040
