Team:WHU-China/Demonstrate



Demonstrate




Professional Assessment




1.Principles


In our human practice in Jingzhou Conservation and Restoration Center , we got some important principles in the field of silk restoration. During our project, all of our design lived up to the requirement of these principles.


  • Minimum Intervention ✔

---- We chose the method of in-situ reinforcement, it can keep the texture of silk relics well.


We build up a light aging model to find the safe enough light system in Model.


  • Identifiability ✔

----The BC reinforced silk can be observed under optical microscope and electron microscope.


  • ‘ Repair the old as old ’ ✔

----We did color difference analysis, and there were no significant difference between the reinforced pieces and non-reinforced pieces.


  • Reprocessability ✔

----We chose BC as the reinforcement material, which has different chemistry component from the silk, the material can be removed with cellulase.



2.Specialists’ comments



All the experts we interviewed showed much interest in our project. They thought highly of reinforcement of fragile silk relic and the resistance to fungi and oxidation, which are among the urgent issues in the field of silk restoration. Our project has brought not only new restoration method, but also fresh and advanced ideas to the specialists. It is believed that synthetic biology would play an important role in the relic restoration in the future!





Experimental Validation




1. Reinforcement



  • BC reinforcement ✔

----We simulated the real reinforcement situation by using aged silk samples, and we did microscopic observation via optical  microscope and scanning electron microscope which confirmed the method, in-situ, we chose was appropriate;


We did experiments to test the reinforcement effect. We verified that our reinforcement had improved both of the mechanical strength and softness of the aging silk.



  • BC production ✔

----We transformed two plasmids including genes of CesA, CesB and DGC into E.coli and induced the expression of BC. We confirmed that the flocculent substances secreted by E.coli were exactly bacteria cellulose via the method of anthrone. And we observed BC produced by E.coli by SEM to verify the reinforcement effect on silk surface.



  • light system ⚪

----We collaborated with ShanghaiTech_China and verified the effectiveness of 1.0 blue light system;


---Time limited, we didn’t confirm the 2.0 red light system;


----We are trying to find a good method to confirm the irregular reinforcement.



2.Converter



  • Cellulose Binding Domain ✔

----We tested the cellulose binding ability of CBM3a and dCBM3a and confirmed that both of the CBM3a and dCBM3a had ability to combine with cellulose, and the dCBM3a had higher affinity.



  • Streptavidin Domain ✔

----We verified the streptavidin domain of dCBM3a by using biotinylated magnetic beads to specific combined with protein with streptavidin.



  • Biotinylation ✔

----We co-expressed BirA enzyme and sfGFP with Avi-Tag and confirmed that the sfGFP with Avi-Tag had been successfully biotinylated.



3.Functionalization



  • DSAOP function detect ✔

----We had successfully confirmed that DSAOP and DSAOP with Avi-Tag had strong scavenging ability of DPPH radical and hydroxyl radical.



  • AMP function detect ✔

----We had successfully confirmed that the AMP we chose, PgD5 had ability to defence the mold, Aspergillus japonicus.






Hardware Demonstrate




  • Video ✔

We created a video to demonstrate our hardware and the whole restoration process in our project.







  • Hardware Estimate ✔

We made a hardware estimate to list the prices of most of the components of our hardware for actural application in the future.