Meeting Minutes for March 21, 2006

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Present: John, Kara, Angela, Annie, Jessie, Peter, Brendan, Katherine, Victoria, Megan

Journal Club Presentation

Construction of a Genetic Toggle Switch in E. Coli

by Victoria and Megan

  • purpose: to integrate theory and experiment by constructing and testing a synthetic, bistable gene circuit (Toggle switch) based on the predictions of a simple mathematical model
  • integrate (mathetic) theory and (biology) experiment
  • mathematical models supposed to predict how much transcribed, testing expected outcomes
  • took a switch that self-regulates and has inducer (heat, chemical) that starts
  • prediction was wrong due to gene variability
  • simplest, as few reagents as possible better
  • specialized promoters
  • ribozyme binding sites, harnessed in plasmid; ensure that they are turned into proteins individually
  • genetic engineering (memory device) insert into something that you would want to be turned on for a long time
  • registry of biological parts at MIT; biological switch, wire linked together (electronic diagramà biological diagram

2005 iGEM project summaries:

UCSF: Kara; genetic circuit of bacteria to respond to temperature gradient, analog vs. digital

Toronto: Angela; Cell See-Us Thermometer and Bacterial Etch-a-Sketch; used mRFP and GFP didn’t have a result

Berkeley: John; cell-cell communicator, send out genomes to other bacteria via a specific pore (channel) and the other bacteria would send something back when it received that message

Harvard: Peter; bio-sketch; use UV pen to write on bacteria, use GFP mutation as reporter; not so much a toggle switch as a one way switch; used heat to “erase”; didn’t work

Caltech: Annie; detect caffeine in solution; YFP and GFP high concentration of caffeine would repress GFP and YFP would glow; if decaf, YFP would be repressed and GFP would grow; if medium, then both would be present.

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