Team:QDHS Shanghai/Description

When farmers spray fertilizer on crops, the excess pesticide will leach to the underground hence contaminate the water. Problems like eutrophication are resulted and many lives are threatened. Fertilizer pollution widely spreads globally, especially in developing countries where agriculture still holds the dominance in economy. Although some countries have started to deal with the problem, the water pollution still exists (Gardner).

Project Description

We find that acetylcholinesterase is an enzyme which catalyzes the reaction converting P fertilizer to phosphoric acid. Therefore, we can use acetylcholinesterase to measure the concentration of P fertilizer by detecting the level of PH. Our goal in this research is to produce acetylcholinesterase by bioengineering. We insert the ACHE gene in mouse into pGEX-4T3, which is a multi-clone vector on E.coli with high efficiency (Jiang, Haobo et al). After expressing the protein that is encoded by ACHE, we assembly it into an PH device which changes its color when PH changes. In this way, people could know the level of fertilizer pollution in water.

Reference

[1] Gardner, Ron. “How to Prevent Water Contamination.” Pesticide Environmental Stewardship, pesticidestewardship.org/water/prevent-contamination/. [Accessed on June 27th 2019].

[2] Jiang, Haobo et al. “Recombinant expression and biochemical characterization of the catalytic domain of acetylcholinesterase-1 from the African malaria mosquito, Anopheles gambiae.” Insect biochemistry and molecular biology vol. 39,9 (2009): 646-53. doi:10.1016/j.ibmb.2009.07.002

[3] “Analyze Sequence: PGEX-4T3.” Addgene, www.addgene.org/browse/sequence_vdb/2878/.