Difference between revisions of "Part:BBa K398406"

Revision as of 15:36, 27 October 2010

Solvent tolerance cluster

Figure 1 - Proteins [http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/explore/explore.do?pdbId=2ZDI phPFDα and phPFDβ]

BBa_K398406 enables E.coli of working in two-phase systems with resistance to high concentrations of hydrophobic molecules in the membrane. A growth rate increase of 62% in comparison to a standard E.coli was achieved at concentrations of 8% (v/v) n-hexane.

Introduction

The effect of organic solvents to organisms can be detrimental: they can accumulate in the cell membrane changing the composition, thus affecting its physiological function. BBa_K398406 produces prefoldin, a protein from Pyrococcus horikoshii OT3. Prefoldin is a part of a widely spread group of proteins: chaperones. These proteins have the property of helping during the protein folding process, and are related also to thermal shock resistance. The prefoldin constists of two subunits: phPFDα and phPFDβ (Figure 1). These proteins increase the tolerance to alkanes by acting as chaperones, which correct protein misfolding /unfolding in the presence of alkanes.

figure 1: Model of the Solvent tolerance

Characterization

The tolerance of our bacteria to organic solvent and salt was tested by studying its growth under varying conditions. The solvent tolerance was tested under varying concentrations of cyclo-hexane, 10%(v/v) octane-hexane mixture and n-hexane, biomass production was monitored by measuring the absorbance at 595 nm in M9 medium. The [http://2010.igem.org/Team:TU_Delft#page=Project/tolerance characterization of BBa_K398406] has been further described on the TU Delft iGEM Team 2010 wiki.

Results

Sequence and Features