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Verification of odor production by wintergreen odor generator

We successfully designed, constructed and tested a biosynthetic device for wintergreen odor production from exogenously supplied precursors. To confirm that the wintergreen odor generator produced the correct smell compound, we analyzed cultures with the device supplemented with 2mM salicylic acid by gas chromatography. The wintergreen odor generator (BBa_J45120) produced high levels of methyl salicylate when we add the precursor salicylic acid to the culture medium (A). The cellular chassis alone (E. coli strain TOP10) did not produce methyl salicylate although we added salicylic acid to the culture medium (B). The retention time of the methyl salicylate peak from BBa_J45120 is identical to that of the pure methyl salicylate standard (C). Most E. coli strains produce indole.