Is Your Detector Expecting? See with HCG!

Detection is used in all aspects of biology and is essential in providing an illustration of the chemical world around us. Currently, fluorescent protein are used as reporters but they require additional analysis with expensive and immobile equipment. We propose to create an alternative detection system kit using recombinant Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) as a reporter. The goal of our project is to create an easy, cost-effective, and sensitive detection device for use in synthetic biology, it can even be used by other iGEM teams to get an all-or-nothing response to indicate the presence or absence of targeted protein. We plan to create a pGEX plasmid containing the recombinant beta subunit of HCG with a strong promoter as a positive promoter and an additional plasmid containing recombinant HCG preceded by restriction sites not present elsewhere in the plasmid and this will be where the promoter is inserted. The promoter will only synthesize HCG when it is activated by the presence of the protein in question. Then when a pregnancy test strip is inserted in the sample, it will trigger the response based on the activation of the introduced promoter.