University of Texas 2006
From 2006.igem.org
The UT Austin team is:
- Aaron Chevalier
- Eric Davidson
- [http://openwetware.org/wiki/User:Jeff_Tabor Jeff Tabor]
- Laura Lavery
- Matt Levy
- [http://www.mine-control.com/ Zack Booth Simpson]
- Bryan Kaehr
Advisors:
- [http://ellingtonlab.org/ Andy Ellington]
- [http://polaris.icmb.utexas.edu/home.html Edward Marcotte]
Contents |
Previous work: Bacterial Photography
An obvious hurdle in the implementation of this system was genetically encoding light detection in the naturally blind E.coli. To accomplish this, we used a synthetic part engineered in the Voigt lab. This part, Cph8, ([http://parts2.mit.edu/r/parts/partsdb/view.cgi?part_id=5302 I15010]) is an engineered fusion between a cyanobacterial light sensing phytochrome (Cph1) and an E.coli transmembrane histidine kinase, (EnvZ). 660nm light causes an isomerization in the Cph1 domain of the chimera which inactivates the histidine kinase acitity of EnvZ. When EnvZ is inhibited, a phosphorelay cascade which activates transcription from the OmpC promoter [http://parts2.mit.edu/r/parts/partsdb/view.cgi?part_id=3910 R0082]) and inhibits transcription from the OmpF promoter ([http://parts2.mit.edu/r/parts/partsdb/view.cgi?part_id=3915 R0084]). We then demonstrated that when this system is expressed in E.coli, it is possible to transform each cell on an agar surface into a decision making pixel capable of reporting whether it is in the light or dark. The community of cells is therefore capable of genetically reproducing a light image.
Current work: Edge detector