Difference between revisions of "Team:ICT-Mumbai/Description"

Further, we wish to utilize this method of identification and differentiation of plants to facilitate selective growth of crops in field. This time, we turn our attention to the fertilizers and pesticides. As mentioned earlier, there is a lot of uncertainty in the prices of vegetable products in India. This makes agriculture a mercurial business. How can one use synthetic biology to help farmer grow same number of crops in lower investment? Yes, our project has a potential solution to it.

Farmers in India use NPK fertilizers, which are composites of Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium bearing synthetic compounds. We here mainly focus on Phosphorous. There is a lot of inorganic phosphorous available in the soil. But crops cannot directly assimilate it. Phosphorous that is provided to plants via NPK fertilizers is in specific soluble form. We wish to engineer the B. Subtilis to produce phytases and secrete those enzymes outside the cell. Phytases can convert inorganic phosphorous into such a form which crops can uptake.

Now where does identification and differentiation stand in this part of the project? We propose to incorporate a genetic circuit that contains an inducible promoter, which is induced by the exudates of that specific crop. By using a transcription regulator, we propose to build an amplification circuit inside the cell, which will keep on producing phytases once the promoter is induced. The exudate which corresponds to weed cannot induce the promoter in the circuit, hence phytases will not be produced in the rizosphere of weeds. There will not be conversation of inorganic phosphorous into assimilable phosphorous which will subdue the growth of weeds.

In a nutshell, our project identifies broad spectrum problems faced by farmers in India and tries to offer a small but potentially effective solution to those.