Team:NJTech China/Collaborations
COLLABORATIONS
CPU_CHINA[click here]
hTERT promoter(BBa_K2624000) is a tumor-specific promoter that is useful in both tumor diagnosis and therapeutics. This year, team CPU_CHINA, Nanjing_NFLS and NJTech_China cooperated to conduct experimental characterization of this part and determined the best protocol. We all characterized this part in HEK293T and HepG2 cells via dual luciferase reporter gene assay. Besides, we used different DNA concentration ratio of firefly luciferase and renilla luciferase from 10:1 to 1:1 to transfect cells in order to find the optimal condition of gene transfection. According to quantitative experimental data, we found the transfection at the ratio of 10:1 is better than the other ratio for characterizing hTERT promoter. [Our protocol]
Huandi Xu (mentor)
Huandi Xu, the instructor of CPU_China, is our mentor and advisor this year. He has given a lot of help to our project. Every month, we communicated with our mentor offline or online, the content included, but were not limited to, the discussion of the progress of the project, the problems encountered in the experiment, and the detailed interpretation of the competition criteria. Whenever we encountered various problems during out work, we can always contact him and get some ideas from our communication. After the end of our presentation in The Sixth Conference of China iGEMer Community, Huandi Xu commented on our PPT, presentation and poster and patiently provided us with some practical suggestions. Thanks to the guidance of Huandi Xu, we have benefited a lot.
Jilin_China [click here]
Through the communication in the Jilin Meetup, we found that the part cjBlue(BBa_K592011) we wanted to characterize this year was tried by Jilin_China last year. Therefore, they sent us the sequenced plasmids containing this part they had used before, and we obtained our target fragment by PCR and cloned it into our own vector. Besides, they also provided us some suggestions on host selection, expression conditions and so on. Altough we used RFP instead of cjBlue eventully, we found that this part was needed by CPU_CHINA by accident and sent it to CPU_CHINA.
HZAU_China [click here]
Prof. Jin He, the PI of HZAU-China. During our brainstorming period, Mr. He came to our school to communicate with our team members, providing us with some guidance on subject design, experimental design (eg, carrier and promoter selection, etc.), patiently answering all our questions. During CCiC, HZAU-China and NJTech_China jointly conducted a mock reply and made recommendations to each other. As an experienced team, HZAU-China has provided many effective suggestions for our project.
Greatbay_SCIE [click here]
This year, the Greatbay_SCIE focuses on the heterologous synthesis of viscous protein produced by waterborne organisms like mussels and barnacles. We met this team in The Sixth Conference of China iGEMer Community, and at that time, they were finding yeast expression system to improve the yield and performance of their recombinant protein.
Coincidentally, Pichia pastoris GS115 was used as our chassis this year. After communicating with members of Greatbay_SCIE, we realized that these yeasts were of great necessity to their project. So I sent some P. pastoris to them when I back to my laboratory. Since it was their first time using this chassis for expression, I tried to give them some suggestions when they were caught in difficulties. Besides, we together discussed methods for protein cloning as well. As a team of high school students, they did a great job! We sincerely hope that they will achieve good results this year.
Nanjing_NFLS[click here]
Due to our lack of experience in homology modeling, the Nanjing_NFLS team told us how to analyze the result of homology model. Then we could build a three-dimensional model of our own protein via the online server (http://servicesn.mbi.ucla.edu/SAVES/). So we could analyze the results of homology modeling with the WHATCHECK module and the PROCHECK module. We used the WHATCHECK module to report the difference of the model protein and the conventional structure protein. The PROCHECK module was used to compare the input protein parameters with the standard parameters to judge the quality of the homologous modeling results. In short, they offered effective assistance for us in modeling.