Difference between revisions of "Part:BBa K557001"

Revision as of 16:06, 5 October 2011

Aptamer-CheZ: theophylline-sensitive synthetic riboswitch+phosphatase which dephosphorylates CheY-P

Sequence and Features

Model

Chemotaxis has always been a powerful tool in organizing bacteria’s movement and it’s always an important ability to reprogram bacteria to follow entirely new chemical signals. Riboswitches, which have been a hot issue of synthetic biology recently, can be used to guide E.Coli toward and precisely localized to a completely new chemical signal. We take advantage of them in [http://2011.igem.org/Team:USTC-China/Project our system] to act as the main power to drive two parts of a bacterial colony away from each other.

Figure 1: Model for how the theophylline-sensitive synthetic riboswitch controls the translation of the CheZ protein. In the absence of theophylline (left),the mRNA adopts a conformation in which the ribosome binding site is paired and translation of CheZ is inhibited. In the absence of CheZ, the protein CheY-P remains phosphorylated and the cells tumble in place. In the presence of theophylline (shown in red), the mRNA can adopt a conformation in which the ribosome binding site is exposed and CheZ is expressed, thus allowing the cells to run and tumble. (Images from: Shana Topp, Justin P. Gallivan (2006) Guiding Bacteria with Small Molecules and RNA. J.Am.Chem.Soc, 129,6870-6811)

Acknowledgements

Here we want really want to thank the Professor J. S. Parkinson for providing ΔcheZ strain RP1616 and the corresponding wild type RP437 and Professor J. P. Gallivan for directing our construction of riboswitches.