Part:BBa_K1403002:Experience

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Applications of BBa_K1403002

To understand the smell created by AgaA, we cloned the gene into E. coli (BBa_K1403002). A noticeable odor was produced by agaA-expressing E. coli grown in selective LB, described as "beer-like" or "cheese-like". We confirmed this observation with a formal double-blind smell test (Fig. 1). Also, we sequenced-verified the plasmid. Although the native substrate of the enzyme is not present in LB, the enzyme is known to have a low specificity for the acyl group, and to act on a range of glutamine conjugates (Natsch et al., 2003). These observations highlight the remarkable affect of single gene on the odor profile of a bacterial population.

Fig 1: 14 people smelled two tubes of E. coli grown to saturation in LB. One culture carried synthetic agaA and other an empty vector control. 13 people out of 14 rated the E. coli carrying agaA as more smelly (pink) than the control(violet). Experiments were double-blind. Significance was confirmed by Chi square test (p-value = 0.001341).

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