Team:IISER-Bhopal-India
Overview
Methane is a growing concern in today's scenario and green methods are desired for its real-time monitoring. Thus, we have developed the prototype of a robust field-applicable methane biosensor, MethNote. We found an enzyme-complex methane monooxygenase(MMO) from Methylococcus capsulatus, a methanotrophic bacterium, that converts methane to methanol. We expressed soluble-MMO in the methylotrophic yeast, Pichia pastoris, which harbors a plasmid expressing the reporter gene under a methanol inducible promoter AOX. Thus, linking methane uptake to a reporter gene expression generates the proposed methane biosensor. The inclusion of sMMO pathway was also checked by metabolic modeling. The constructed part will be a useful contribution to the iGEM repository. A commercial design of MethNote will find widespread applications in environmental monitoring of methane. In future studies, we also anticipate an additional application of Mut- strain of P. pastoris expressing sMMO in biofuel production through methanol sequestration.