Difference between revisions of "Team:Goettingen/Description"

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Feeding the steadily increasing world population is a major task that heavily relies on the use of fertilizers and herbicides. Glyphosate is the most prominent example for a total-herbicide. Glyphosate has been the most used herbicide in the US for the past decades and its usage is still increasing. The herbicide has a bad reputation, as it is thought to be harmful to human health and its effect on the environment are controversially discussed. Glyphosate also could pose a threat to biodiversity, but no real long-term studies have been carried out so far in this regard. Our team has set itself the goal to approach the glyphosate controversy and to improve the knowledge about the impact of the herbicide on the physiology of a soil-dwelling organism. The Gram-positive model bacterium <i>Bacillus subtilis</i> is a soil-dwelling organism that perfectly suited to achieve our goal. Previously, it has been demonstrated that growth of <i>B. subtilis</i> is strongly inhibited by glyphosate.  
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Feeding the steadily increasing world population is a major task that heavily relies on the use of fertilizers and herbicides. Glyphosate is the most prominent example for a total-herbicide. Glyphosate has been the most used herbicide in the US for the past decades and its usage is still increasing. The herbicide has a bad reputation, as it is thought to be harmful to human health and its effect on the environment are controversially discussed. Several studies indicate that glyphosate could also pose a threat to biodiversity. However, no real long-term studies have been carried out so far in this regard. Our team has set itself the goal to approach the glyphosate controversy and to improve the knowledge about the impact of the herbicide on the physiology of a soil-dwelling organism. The Gram-positive model bacterium <i>Bacillus subtilis</i> is a soil-dwelling organism that perfectly suited to achieve our goal. Previously, it has been demonstrated that growth of <i>B. subtilis</i> is strongly inhibited by glyphosate. At first we have assessed the potential of <i>B. subtilis</i> to adapt to toxic levels of glyphosate at the genome level. We could successfully isolate several mutant strains of <i>B. subtilis</i> that tolerate high amounts of glyphosate. Genome sequencing analyses revealed that all mutants had inactivated a gene encoding an amino acid transporter. Thus, our initial work led to the first glyphosate transport system! Currently, we aim to engineer <i>B. subtilis</i> for the detection and degradation of glyphosate. The microbial reporter system is based on fluorescently labelled bacteria that tolerate different amounts of glyphosate. We also plan to engineer the bacteria to disarm glyphosate using a glyphosate <i>N</i>-acetyl-transferase. Our human practice section is dedicated to the raise of awareness for Glyphosate and microbial research, while simultaneously cooperating with other scientific labs to achieve our goal. In the end, this should provide an updated view on the Glyphosate controversy with renewed insights into the effects of the herbicide on organisms and possibly solution approaches with Glyphosate resistances.</p>
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of the influence of glyphosate on the physiology of a model organism
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through a microbial reporter system, using the well-known model organism <i>Bacillus subtilis</i>.  This system should be able to detect and indicate the presence of glyphosate. During our studies we also aim to enhance the understanding of the effects of glyphosate on bacteria. We want to show how it is taken up into the bacterial cell and which pathways are affected by it. We will present our work on the development of glyphosate-resistant <i>Bacillus subtilis</i> strains. Using these suppressor mutants, we could for the first time identify a protein that is capable of transporting glyphosate. The glyphosate-resistant strains could even provide the possibility to develop a glyphosate degradation pathway, based on the hypothesis that <i>Bacillus subtilis</i> might use glyphosate as its carbon source. Our human practice section is dedicated to the raise of awareness for Glyphosate and microbial research, while simultaneously cooperating with other scientific labs to achieve our goal. In the end, this should provide an updated view on the Glyphosate controversy with renewed insights into the effects of the herbicide on organisms and possibly solution approaches with Glyphosate resistances.</p>
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   <p style="font-weight: bold; font-size:1.1em">iGEM-Team Göttingen, Georg-August University Göttingen, Germany</p>
 
   <p style="font-weight: bold; font-size:1.1em">iGEM-Team Göttingen, Georg-August University Göttingen, Germany</p>
 
   <table class="team-listing">
 
   <table class="team-listing">

Revision as of 12:48, 28 August 2018

Glyphosate on my plate?! Detection and inactivation of Glyphosate using the soil bacterium Bacillus subtilis

Feeding the steadily increasing world population is a major task that heavily relies on the use of fertilizers and herbicides. Glyphosate is the most prominent example for a total-herbicide. Glyphosate has been the most used herbicide in the US for the past decades and its usage is still increasing. The herbicide has a bad reputation, as it is thought to be harmful to human health and its effect on the environment are controversially discussed. Several studies indicate that glyphosate could also pose a threat to biodiversity. However, no real long-term studies have been carried out so far in this regard. Our team has set itself the goal to approach the glyphosate controversy and to improve the knowledge about the impact of the herbicide on the physiology of a soil-dwelling organism. The Gram-positive model bacterium Bacillus subtilis is a soil-dwelling organism that perfectly suited to achieve our goal. Previously, it has been demonstrated that growth of B. subtilis is strongly inhibited by glyphosate. At first we have assessed the potential of B. subtilis to adapt to toxic levels of glyphosate at the genome level. We could successfully isolate several mutant strains of B. subtilis that tolerate high amounts of glyphosate. Genome sequencing analyses revealed that all mutants had inactivated a gene encoding an amino acid transporter. Thus, our initial work led to the first glyphosate transport system! Currently, we aim to engineer B. subtilis for the detection and degradation of glyphosate. The microbial reporter system is based on fluorescently labelled bacteria that tolerate different amounts of glyphosate. We also plan to engineer the bacteria to disarm glyphosate using a glyphosate N-acetyl-transferase. Our human practice section is dedicated to the raise of awareness for Glyphosate and microbial research, while simultaneously cooperating with other scientific labs to achieve our goal. In the end, this should provide an updated view on the Glyphosate controversy with renewed insights into the effects of the herbicide on organisms and possibly solution approaches with Glyphosate resistances.

iGEM-Team Göttingen, Georg-August University Göttingen, Germany

Members: Rica Bremenkamp, Malte Holmer, Jonas Jennrich, Veronika Lutz, Janek Meißner, Lisa Schulz, Robert Warneke, Marie Wensien, Dennis Wicke
Supervisors: Prof. Jörg Stülke, Dr. Fabian M. Commichau