Part:BBa_M36401
Salicylic Acid to Methyl Salicylate Actuator
This part encodes for the SAM enzyme (Salicylic acid carboxyl methyltransferase) which in the presence of salicylic acid will catalyzes the conversion of salicylic acid to methyl salicylate. This will release the distinct wintergreen smell.
Usage and Biology
We transfected our plasmid into both a normal strain of E.Coli as well as a mutated strain that prevents the innate odor of E.Coli. Since this part serves as an actuator it can be integrated in various systems that are fitted with a sensor that outputs salicyclic acid in order to create a system that results in aromatic detection of a specific substrate. In our case this actuator contains a rhamnose inducible, glucose repressible promoter which trigger the production of the carboxylic acid methyl transferase (SAM) enzyme. The enzyme, if introduced to salicylic acid, will create the wintergreen odor emitting ester methyl salicylate.
Sequence and Features
- 10INCOMPATIBLE WITH RFC[10]Illegal PstI site found at 213
- 12INCOMPATIBLE WITH RFC[12]Illegal PstI site found at 213
- 21COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[21]
- 23INCOMPATIBLE WITH RFC[23]Illegal PstI site found at 213
- 25INCOMPATIBLE WITH RFC[25]Illegal PstI site found at 213
- 1000COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[1000]
Functional Parameters
Our plasmid contains a rhaBAD (rhamnose-inducuble) promoter and ampicillin selection marker where higher concentration of rhamnose would result in increased protein expression. We tested for uninduced, natural production rate of the SAM enzyme and how increased concentration of salycylic acid effected the expression of our gene. However, since we did not test under rhamnose induced conditions we do not know how the concentrations of rhamnose would effect the overall production of the SAM enzyme and potentially help the device survive under higher concentration of salicylic acid.
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