For this year’s iGEM competition, our team has chosen to present nine different small RNAs (BBa_K2595000, BBa_K2595001, BBa_K2595003, BBa_K2595004, BBa_K2595005, BBa_K2595006, BBa_K2595007, BBa_K2595008, BBa_K2595009) for the Registry of Standard Biological Parts.

Small RNAs are a type of non-coding RNA, often involved in regulating translation of target RNAs through RNA-RNA interactions (Hagemann-Jensen et al., 2018). With small RNAs’ participation in several cellular processes, they are innovative yet cell-friendly synthetic technology which can be used for down regulating the quantity of a cellular component.

KCl iGEM is very excited to introduce the first library of small RNAs to the iGEM competition and creating a platform with tools available to future iGEM teams to incorporate in their design.

Our nine small RNA parts are the active component of RNA interference. For the implementation of our technology, each engineered RNA is inserted into the plasmid and down-regulate the expression of targeted gene. In the absence of our engineered small RNAs, the competent cells will express the normal quantity of cellular component which may be a protein, a receptor or RNA (Please follow the link below for specific functions of each sRNAs).

Our approach to engineer small RNAs provides a more simple, yet effective regulatory system compared to a traditional protein-based regulatory system. Our engineering technology offers easier way of designing by using Watson-Crick base pairing and bypassing unpredictable structural protein- protein interaction. This technology is easily adaptable and universal due to its portability, as RNA- based regulation is not host-specific. Our library of sRNAs could be applied throughout not only the bacterial kingdom but also, Archaea, and Eukaryota.

Hagemann-Jensen, M., Abdullayev, I., Sandberg, R. and Faridani, O.R., 2018. Small-seq for single- cell small-RNA sequencing. Nature protocols, p.1.