Difference between revisions of "Team:Tufts/Description"
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<h3>How exactly would this work?</h3> | <h3>How exactly would this work?</h3> | ||
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| − | <li> | + | <li> First, a mRNA linked to a particular disease would bind to the switch region of the toehold</li> |
| − | <li> | + | <li>This would cause the collapse of the toehold, freeing the start codon and allowing for translation.</li> |
| − | <li> | + | <li>The protein being translated would be Cas13a, which when activated by a guide RNA, cleaves RNA nondescriminantly.</li> |
<li>Use illustrations and other visual resources to explain your project.</li> | <li>Use illustrations and other visual resources to explain your project.</li> | ||
</ul> | </ul> | ||
Revision as of 22:56, 15 October 2018
Description
Our project was based on the concept of a toehold switch. A toehold switch is a hairpin of RNA that is able to be used as a mechanism to activate the translation of certain proteins. The toehold consists of a ribosome binding site, a start codon, and a switch region. In our project, the RNAs complementary to the switch region were theoretically those miRNAs that are emitted when disease processes occur in the human body. Thus, activating the switch with these miRNAs would allow for detection of disease.
How exactly would this work?
- First, a mRNA linked to a particular disease would bind to the switch region of the toehold
- This would cause the collapse of the toehold, freeing the start codon and allowing for translation.
- The protein being translated would be Cas13a, which when activated by a guide RNA, cleaves RNA nondescriminantly.
- Use illustrations and other visual resources to explain your project.
Inspiration
See how other teams have described and presented their projects:
Advice on writing your Project Description
We encourage you to put up a lot of information and content on your wiki, but we also encourage you to include summaries as much as possible. If you think of the sections in your project description as the sections in a publication, you should try to be concise, accurate, and unambiguous in your achievements.
References
iGEM teams are encouraged to record references you use during the course of your research. They should be posted somewhere on your wiki so that judges and other visitors can see how you thought about your project and what works inspired you.