Part:BBa_M50055:Experience

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Applications of BBa_M50055

This part is intended to be an atrazine biosensor that uses GFP expression to reflect atrazine levels in the surrounding environment. However, we found that it is also sensitive to simazine, which is chemically similar to atrazine, indicating that this plasmid could potentially be used as a broad-application biosensor for triazine class pesticides.

User Reviews

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We ordered this part from DNA 2.0 with the addition of an IPTG-inducible promoter. The plasmid was then transformed into E. coli and cultured in LB + kanamycin.
We first conducted an assay to see the effects of IPTG, atrazine, and simazine on GFP expression. 0.5 mL of E.coli cells containing the BBa_M50055 plasmid at an OD600 of 0.01 was incubated with the following concentrations of IPTG: 0mM, 0.1 mM, 0.2 mM, 0.5 mM, and 1 mM, and atrazine: 0 μM, 10 μM, 20 μM, 50 μM, and 100 μM, for a total of 25 different IPTG-atrazine concentration combinations. An equivalent assay was conducted with simazine in place of atrazine to assess the aptamer’s selectivity.
Fold expression was calculated by comparing the ratio of lowest GFP fluorescence, which we hypothesized would occur at lower combinations of lower concentrations of atrazine (0 μM) and IPTG (0 mM), to that of different IPTG and atrazine concentrations. Our results demonstrate that different concentration combinations of IPTG and atrazine produce unique GFP expression levels that are dose- dependent with both IPTG and atrazine. GFP expression begins to become pronounced abruptly at higher IPTG (0.5 mM) and lower atrazine (10 μM) concentrations, and quickly demonstrates saturation at higher atrazine concentrations, implying a low limit of detection. Interestingly, the bacterial biosensors also reacted with simazine, although the GFP expression levels were notably lower than those observed for atrazine. These results indicate a slight cross-reactivity to simazine, most likely due to the chemical similarity of simazine and atrazine. In light of this data, the developed plasmid could serve as a broad- application biosensor for triazine class pesticides.
The figures below show the expression trajectories of our riboswitch based on atrazine (A) and the negative control simazine (B).


The average GFP/OD600 value for the blank media negative control was 210 with a standard deviation of 54. The average GFP/OD600 value for E.coli transformed with pHeLa was 64219 with a standard deviation of 801.

Stanford Location

Plasmid name: muleATZ
DNA2.0 Gene #: custom version of pD444-CC
Organism: E. coli
Device type: Actuator
Glycerol stock barcode: 0133027144
Box label: BioE44 F16