Team:NEU CHINA/Collaborations

HP_Collaboration

HP

Collaboration

The verification for feasibility of the modular riboswitch.

Riboswitch is a structural genetic regulatory element that directly regulates the expression of downstream genes through the reaction of small molecules.

OUC-China used the “Stabilizer” to stabilize the structure of the riboswitch and use the “tunner” to insulate Stabilizer and GOI and allow for predictable tuning.

In order to verify the feasibility of the modular riboswitch constructed by our team in practice, OUC-China needed to express their sequence in different experimental environments to explore the stability of this structure.

So, we help them verify their part. The experimental results show that our system can work normally in different laboratory environments, and the system is feasible (Fig. 1).

Deep cooperation of OUC-China

Figure 1. The effect of modular riboswitch with different concentrations of 2-AP. Fluorescence/RFU values of the groups of 2-AP (ligand) added with different concentrations (0, 50 μM/ml, 150 μM/ml) are gained after 8 hours’ inducing.

Deep collaboration with Jiangnan_China

In the early stage of our project, we had not got the iGEM Kit plate, it was tough for us to construct the yeaR based NO sensor. After contacting to SJTU_BioX_Shanghai which has used the yeaR promter last year, they generously offered a plasmid contained the yeaR promter. Due to their plasimd we saved budget and time in a great deal. We are so appreciated that they come through us when we need help.

IGEM Northeastern Meetup

In the end of the summer vocation, we joined iGEM Northeastern Meetup. By this great opportunity, our team held a seminar together with the other three teams (DLTU-China-A, DLTU-CHINA-B, and Jilin-China) to discuss future outreach projects as well as how to do experiments well in engaging a diversity of thoughts. During this seminar, we four teams gave the presentations based on each other’s projects, and conversed about how the utilization of probiotics for intestinal health can be safe enough for the masses to embrace.

Furthermore, we shared the ideas of our project as well as the results of our experiments with other teams during the Meetup. The team members from Jilin-China said the design of our kill switch provided the inspiration for their project and they were interested to its working principle. We also deliberated about appropriate ways to make an improvement to some experimental pattern and details based on each other’s projects in order to increase our efficiency.

Through this Meetup, we determined to establish cooperative relationship with some iGEM teams, such as DLTU-China-A who helped us measure an experimental data which explains the practicability and applicability of our amplifier system. The meetup helped us recognize our limitation and commonness of the projects, which greatly promoted the development of these four new iGEM teams.

The sixth Conference of China iGEMer Community (CCIC)

On August 19th, we attended the sixth CCiC held by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Shenzhen Advanced Technology Research Institute, in Shenzhen, China.

The sixth CCiC was themed as "Synbiopunk" to express a pursuit of freedom, innovation and efficiency. About 70 iGEM teams from more than 60 colleges and universities across the country took part in the CCIC. At the CCiC conference, each team made live demonstrations and posters, sharing their research results and experience. It is a great honor that our team has also participated in it.

Here, we had the opportunity to contact with more teams. For those difficulties we faced in the experiment, other teams were enthusiastic to assist us. During the CCiC, we also discovered various problems existing in our project:

1. SUSTech_Shenzhe provided us with a method for detecting the activity of the immunosuppressive factor IL-10 in vitro and gave us some valuable experience.

2. Several judges with rich knowledge of synthetic biology and students who with many years’ experience participating in iGEM gave us suggestions on the future direction of the project. They suggested that we should do more social research to explore the public's acceptance of engineered probiotic products as well as the degree and the aspects they care most about.

3. At the same time, we recommended our optimized kill switch to other teams.

Please click here to see our collaboration with OUC_China.

Please click here to see our collaboration with Jiangnan China.

Figure 2. The polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis picture. The SacB promoter’s sequence length is about 2900bp and the SPC resistance gene’s sequence length is about 1100bp.

Deep collaboration with SJTU_BioX_Shanghai

Please click here to see our collaboration with SJTU_BioX_Shanghai.

They used the mathematical modeling method to help us analyze the experimental results of kill switch module and put forward suggestions for improvement. When monitoring detailed data of strain number, several methods should be used, not only using OD to express the data. We are so appreciated that they come through us when we need help.

In the meantime, we helped Tianjin University to conduct market research on lycopene, including cost, raw material consumption, industrial production process and so on. Through our investigation into the lycopene markets, the team of Tianjing_China realized that there was still a huge market potential for lycopene and space for optimization of strains. They thought that hybrid cells could be dual optimization using transformation of yeast in the production of lycopene passway and liposome in yarrowia lipolytic.

Deep collaboration with Tianjing_China

Please click here to see our collaboration with Tianjing_China.

Figure 3. The sixth Conference of China iGEMer Community (CCIC) in Shenzhen, China.

Figure 4. The big picture of all participants.

Figure 5. Team NEU_CHINA 2019 in the sixth CCIC.

Figure 6. The photo of iGEM Northeastern Meetup.

On July 2nd, we contacted with NEU_CHINA online. After hearing about each other’s projects, we decided to establish collaborative relationship and maintain connection with each other.

On September 1st, Jiangnan_China helped us conduct a NO Sensor validation experiment. They measured the OD values of three E. coli BL21s transformed with different recombinant plasmids, under different induction conditions and different incubation times. Through their experiments, we conformed that we did optimize NO Sensor and make it more sensitive.

On September 27th, after Jiangnan_China completed the experiment of promoter SacB replacement (Fig. 2); we helped them test it by PCR and the polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis results are showing below, the SacB promoter’s sequence length is about 2900bp and the SPC resistance gene’s sequence length is about 1100bp. We convinced that they had successfully replaced the promoter.