Of CO₂urse

In order to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO₂) which is surrounding in environment, our team has developed a device, containing our engineered E. coli to fix the CO₂ when it undergoes its native metabolic pathway. Those three data, temperature, concentration of CO₂, and pH value will be shown on the screen as we have developed an App for our user. All of our ideas are to provide an another choice for public without any replacement as we are really longing for the low carbon society. Therefore, we use microorganism to, "of CO₂urse", reduce the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The issue of the greenhouse effect has always been a problem that needs to be solved by not only some environmental protection section but to all human being in the current society since the awareness of industrial evolution in the 18^th century.

Greenhouse effect brings a lot of side effect to us. For example, ice will melt, and it causes the rise of sea level while the land for terrestrial to live is getting lesser and lesser. Besides, the global temperature will increase resulting the rise of sea temperature, and that rise of temperature will make the chemical reaction in the sea to be faster than usual depleting the coral reef which unbalance the ecosystem in the sea. Furthermore, greenhouse effect will also be resulting the depletion of the ozone layer. It means that living things will exposed under ultraviolet light and all the living things will live at a high mutation rate. As a result, human will easily get the dermatitis disease than the past, and even have a high risk of skin cancer.

In conclusion, if we are still not going to take care of this, we will face the risk of extinction as the situation is getting worse. As one of the members in global village, our team, NCKU_Tainan think that we should enroll ourselves in movement that can help reduce the emission of greenhouse gaseous (GHGs). This year, our team have designed a new way to catch one of the GHGs, CO₂, by using an advance and modern technique nowadays, Synthetic Biology. Without any replacement with other ways but to offer another way to public, the public could use it in different condition.

In order to reduce GHGs emissions, the industry have long been committed to energy saving and carbon reduction in the process. CO₂ emissions in the factory are currently moving toward the technology of Carbon Capture Storage and Utilization (CCS & U). Development of CCS & U is a determine factor in reducing directly emits CO₂ into the atmosphere.

After doing some research, we cloned some gene fragments that can express PRK, CA and Rubisco which is from a unicellular cyanobacteria strain, Synchococcus alongatus pcc 7942 and Synchococcus alongatus pcc 7002into our model organism, E. coli. After cloning three gene fragments into E. coli, it could build a new metabolic pathway that can accomplish carbon utilization, subverting the cognition that only most of the plants could utilize CO₂.

Firstly, E. coli will uptake xylose in the surrounding of its cultivation environment. After that, xylose will be metabolized and converted into Ru5P by its own native metabolic pathway. Next, PRK catalyzed the convertion from Ru5P to RuBP. RuBP will react with CO₂ ,which functionalized by Rubisco, and then converted into 3-PGA while 3-PGA will become a multifunctional intermediate, pyruvate.

In order to expand the scope of our project to be used on fields, our team have designed a device to let our engineered E. coli to utilize CO₂ in the real life. The device can be divided into three main parts. A bioreactor, which consisting a pH meter, a thermometer and a CO₂ sensor, a nutrient tank, which containing a fed-batch culture system and a collection tank to collect waste and product at the downstream of our device.

Next, for the consideration to the real time internal condition monitor of our device, we have designed an App. No matter where you are, users could determine the progress of bioreactor with the immediately data of temperature, CO₂ concentration and pH value. These data come from the sensors on our device which will be showed on the App through the database, uploaded by WI-FI module.

In the Integrated Human Practice, we improved our project from different activities in the different aspects. We visited professors in all kinds of specialities when we encountered difficulties. Their instant corrections helped us walk on the right direction. Besides, our project converge diversify fields, so the more suggestions we had, the more integrity we propose.

As for the appliance of our project, industrial interview is the supporting method. Each time of the interview with different enterprises, we get more suggestions and we were able to get closer to their needs. One of the important concern of the enterprise is to maximize the benefit and lower down cost simultaneously. Besides, meeting up with other iGEMers built a strong friendship with those who also have interest in synthetic biology. We also seek the opportunity to collaboration, and created a win-win situation.

For the education and public engagement, we attempt to introduce synthetic biology to the students and public in a more interesting way. The more people we affect, the more people we can cooperate.

Different from normal courses, we designed easy going and interesting experiments and app games for students and public, which led them to become interested in iGEM. After these activities, their feedbacks helped us to understand their thoughts and we were able to adjust and improve our presentation for next time.

Furthermore, we participated in a festival held within our university NCKU as well at a medical conference within the medical school, and operated our fan page to increase our project exposure, as well as synthetic biology and iGEM. Our fan page also aided in raising the awareness of iGEM in our school, which attracted more student to join us.

Reference

1. “TIL: It's Currently 20°C Hotter In The North Pole Than It Should Be.” Busy, 21 Nov. 2016, busy.org/@sirwinchester/til-it-s-currently-20-c-hotter-in-the-north-pole-than-it-should-be.