Difference between revisions of "Team:Lund"

 
(35 intermediate revisions by 2 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
 
{{Lund}}
 
{{Lund}}
−
 
−
 
 
<html>
 
<html>
 +
<div id="home-bg">
 +
<div id="home-top-wrapper">
 +
<div class="home-top-item">
 +
<img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/1/15/T--Lund--speedometer_round1.svg" class="home-side-image home-right-image">
 +
<div id="home-oxygen-text" class="home-textbox home-left-text">
 +
<h1>It all starts here</h1>
 +
<p>The rapid development of biotechnology has allowed the utilization of microorganisms in the sustainable manufacturing of essential products used in our day to day lives. The demand for more energy efficient technologies is increasing as society places more emphasis on the environment. Our project revolves around the co-expression of a bacterial hemoglobin as a means to increase oxygen utilization which in turn improves the yields of these products.</p>
 +
</div>
 +
</div>
 +
<div class="home-top-item">
 +
<img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/d/d5/T--Lund--reactor.svg" class="home-side-image">
 +
<div id="home-oxygen-text" class="home-textbox home-right-text">
 +
<h1>Oxygen is the Issue</h1>
 +
<p>One of the most common bottlenecks in biomanufacturing are oxygen deprivations. Cells are often grown into high cell densities to optimize the products yields. This can in turn limit oxygen availability, resulting in slower growth and undesired fermentation products.</p>
 +
</div>
 +
</div>
 +
<div class="home-top-item">
 +
<img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/4/49/T--Lund--vitreoscilla.png" class="home-side-image home-right-image" style="height: 415px; margin-top: 37.5px; margin-bottom: 37.5px">
 +
<div id="home-oxygen-text" class="home-textbox home-left-text">
 +
<h1>A Very Special<br> Hemoglobin</h1>
 +
<p>Vitreoscilla is a strictly aerobic organism which, during oxygen deprivations, expresses Vitreoscilla hemoglobin (VHb). This defense mechanism  allows the bacterium to survive in very hypoxic conditions. Its hemoglobin has been found to have very useful biotechnical applications in combating oxygen limitations.</p>
 +
</div>
 +
</div>
 +
<div class="home-top-item">
 +
<img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/c/c7/T--Lund--graph_landing2.png" class="home-side-image">
 +
<div id="home-oxygen-text" class="home-textbox home-right-text">
 +
<h1>Our Project</h1>
 +
<p>Our project investigates the protein productivity based on the degree of VHb expression. Low VHb expression will not do the job while too high starves the cell resources. The answer lays somewhere in between. Find out how (<a href="/Team:Lund/Design" style="color:white">Link to design</a>).</p>
 +
</div>
 +
</div>
 +
<div id="home-bottom-container">
 +
<div class="home-bottom-item">
 +
<h2 class="home-bottom-title">Modeling</h2>
 +
<a href="/Team:Lund/Model"><img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/7/78/T--Lund--modeling_landing_page.svg" class="home-bottom-image" id="home-image-modeling"></a>
 +
<p class="home-bottom-text">We modeled cell growth and designed human hemoglobin mutants. Read more about our novel approaches.</p>
 +
</div>
 +
<div class="home-bottom-item">
 +
<h2 class="home-bottom-title">Scaling up</h2>
 +
<a href="/Team:Lund/Applied_Design"> <img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/e/e7/T--Lund--industry_landing.svg" id="home-image-scalingup" class="home-bottom-image"> </a>
 +
<p class="home-bottom-text">Learn about how our project can be used to improve pre-existing biomanufacturing processes.</p>
 +
</div>
 +
<div class="home-bottom-item">
 +
<h2 class="home-bottom-title">Practices</h2>
 +
<a href="/Team:Lund/Public_Engagement"><img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/0/0a/T--Lund--earth_landing.svg" class="home-bottom-image" id="home-image-practices"></a>
 +
<p class="home-bottom-text">Our main HP contributions this year has been to provide the iGEM community with adequate management strategies as a means to improve their projects.</p>
 +
</div>
 +
</div>
  
−
 
+
</div>
−
 
+
−
<header class="results-landing">
+
−
  <div class="container">
+
−
    <h1 class="display">Home</h1>
+
−
  </div>
+
−
</header>
+
−
 
+
−
<script>
+
−
$('p').each(function(index, item) {
+
−
    if($.trim($(item).text()) === "") {
+
−
        $(item).slideUp(); // $(item).remove();
+
−
    }
+
−
});
+
−
</script>
+
−
<div class="container" >
+
−
<h1> Welcome to iGEM Lund 2018! </h1>
+
−
 
+
−
<p>Microorganisms are used to produce many valuable products such as pharmaceuticals, food additives and enzymes. However, the production process can be expensive and achieving a high yield is sometimes difficult, with the oxygen supply being a common bottleneck. One approach in combating this problem is the co-expression of <i>Vitreoscilla</i> hemoglobin (VHb). The co-expression is often linked with increased cell densities and higher protein yields. However, few studies have to our knowledge investigated to what degree the protein should be expressed in order to provide beneficial effects. In addition, we have not found any standardized approach in implementing VHb into already existing systems. </p>
+
−
 
+
−
<font size="3">
+
−
<i>Vitreoscilla</i> hemoglobin is a protein found in the aerobic bacterium <i>Vitreoscilla</i>. It has been proposed that its main role is to deliver oxygen to terminal respiratory oxidases and thereby increase respiration when the oxygen availability is low, and it may also function as a terminal oxidase itself<sup>1</sup>. Several studies have shown that expression of the gene coding for VHb, <i>vgb</i>, can improve cell growth<sup>2,3,4</sup>
+
−
as well as increase the production of, among other things, enzymes<sup>5,6</sup>, antifungals<sup>7</sup> and ethanol<sup>8</sup>. </p>
+
−
 
+
−
We hypothesize that expressing only a small amount of <i>vgb</i> will lead to an insufficient oxygen utilization and consequently non-optimal cell productivity. On the other hand, overexpressing <i>vgb</i> will result in a depletion of cell resources as the relative amount of energy gained from the increased metabolism will be overtaken by the amount of protein expressed, The optimal conditions should therefore be approachable by an expression level which is somewhere in-between. </p>
+
−
 
+
−
To investigate the hypothesis, our aim is to co-express VHb under promoters of varying strength along with a target protein in <i>Escherichia coli</i>. This will be accomplished by using the library of Anderson promoters from the iGEM registry, which are characterized by their RNA polymerase binding strengths. Consequently, we want to measure various properties such as protein yields, cell densities and metabolite concentrations in order to study the effect of increased VHb expression. As such, we wish to first investigate the effect of increased VHb levels and then test our system in a real upscale setting. </p>
+
−
 
+
−
In our contribution to iGEM, our ambition is to provide a library of <i>vgb</i> expression systems with varying promoter strengths. With this available, the amount of increased oxygen uptake can be tailored specifically for the intended application. This gives a new degree of freedom in the experimental design when considering the use of oxygen carriers in synthetic biological systems. The parts could for example be used to increase protein yields under upscaling or increase cell survivability in low oxygen environments.</p>
+
−
</font>
+
−
<hr>
+
−
<font size="1">
+
−
[1] Stark, B. C., Dikshit, K. L. and Pagilla, K. R. (2012). The Biochemistry of <i>Vitreoscilla</i> hemoglobin. <i>Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal</i> 3, e201210002. http://doi.org/10.5936/csbj.201210002 <br>
+
−
[2] Khosla, C., and Bailey, J. (1988) Heterologous expression of a bacterial haemoglobin improves the growth properties of recombinant <i>Escherichia coli</i>. <i>Nature</i> 331, 633-635.<br>
+
−
[3] Wu, JM. and Fu, WC. (2012) Intracellular co-expression of <i>Vitreoscilla</i> hemoglobin enhances cell performance and β-galactosidase production in <i>Pichia pastoris. J Biosci Bioeng</i> 113(3), 332–337.<br>
+
−
 
+
−
[4] Pablos, T. E., Mora, E. M., Le Borgne, S., Ramírez, O. T., Gosset, G. and Lara, A. R. (2011), <i>Vitreoscilla</i> hemoglobin expression in engineered <i>Escherichia coli</i>: Improved performance in high cell‐density batch cultivations. <i>Biotechnology Journal</i>, 6: 993-1002. doi:10.1002/biot.201000405 <br>
+
−
 
+
−
[5] Khosravi, M., Webster D. A. and Stark, B.C. (1990). Presence of the bacterial hemoglobin gene improves α-amylase production of a recombinant <i>Escherichia coli</i> strain. <i>Plasmid</i> 24(3), 190-194. <br>
+
−
 
+
−
[6] Wu, JM., Wang, SY., Fu, WC. (2012). Lower Temperature Cultures Enlarge the Effects of <i>Vitreoscilla</i> Hemoglobin Expression on Recombinant <i>Pichia pastoris. Int. J. Mol. Sci.</i> 13(10), 13212-13226; doi:10.3390/ijms131013212 <br>
+
−
 
+
−
[7] Wang S, Liu F, Hou Z, Zong G, Zhu X, Ling P. Enhancement of natamycin production on <i>Streptomyces gilvosporeus</i> by chromosomal integration of the <i>Vitreoscilla</i> hemoglobin gene (<i>vgb</i>) <i>World J Microb Biot</i>. 2014;30:1369–1376. doi: 10.1007/s11274-013-1561-4 <br>
+
−
 
+
−
[8] Sanny, T., Arnaldos, M., Kunkel, S.A. et al (2010). Engineering of ethanolic <i>E. coli</i> with the <i>Vitreoscilla</i> hemoglobin gene enhances ethanol production from both glucose and xylose. <i>Appl Microbiol Biotechnol</i> 88, 1103-1112. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-010-2817-7
+
−
</p>
+
−
</font>
+
−
 
+
−
<i> Contact: igemlund@gmail.com </i>
+
−
 
+
 
</div>
 
</div>
−
 
−
 
 
</html>
 
</html>
 +
{{Lund/footer}}

Latest revision as of 03:42, 18 October 2018

It all starts here

The rapid development of biotechnology has allowed the utilization of microorganisms in the sustainable manufacturing of essential products used in our day to day lives. The demand for more energy efficient technologies is increasing as society places more emphasis on the environment. Our project revolves around the co-expression of a bacterial hemoglobin as a means to increase oxygen utilization which in turn improves the yields of these products.

Oxygen is the Issue

One of the most common bottlenecks in biomanufacturing are oxygen deprivations. Cells are often grown into high cell densities to optimize the products yields. This can in turn limit oxygen availability, resulting in slower growth and undesired fermentation products.

A Very Special
Hemoglobin

Vitreoscilla is a strictly aerobic organism which, during oxygen deprivations, expresses Vitreoscilla hemoglobin (VHb). This defense mechanism allows the bacterium to survive in very hypoxic conditions. Its hemoglobin has been found to have very useful biotechnical applications in combating oxygen limitations.

Our Project

Our project investigates the protein productivity based on the degree of VHb expression. Low VHb expression will not do the job while too high starves the cell resources. The answer lays somewhere in between. Find out how (Link to design).

Modeling

We modeled cell growth and designed human hemoglobin mutants. Read more about our novel approaches.

Scaling up

Learn about how our project can be used to improve pre-existing biomanufacturing processes.

Practices

Our main HP contributions this year has been to provide the iGEM community with adequate management strategies as a means to improve their projects.

Gant Logo LMK Logo Lund Logo Kunskappsartner Logo