Team:Duke/Description
Adam, Trudy, and Joe
Description
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Project Description
We are engineering E. coli to produce taxol from an intermediate (10-Deacetylbaccatin III) in the taxol synthesis pathway. We are using a modular approach to link the five necessary genes together onto a single DNA strand so that our design can be easily adapted for next generation taxanes in the future. Each gene in the pathway will be equipped with a T7 promoter of various strengths from a promoter library, fitted to the genes using the ePathOptimize approach for metabolic engineering. The project's end goal is to analyze the activity of produced taxol and evaluate this taxol biosynthesis design's feasibility in industrially relevant conditions. Homology modeling is used to develop protein models for the five necessary genes to determine active site architecture and catalytic functions. These models will then be considered when mutating the genes to produce next generation taxane products.
Why is Taxol important?
Taxol is a cancer drug that works by inhibiting microtubule disassembly during cell division. ....
Why is biosynthesis of Taxol necessary?
Taxol is currently produced...the problem with this is...
What are we doing?
Our project aims to engineer E. coli to produce Taxol. Mention building on the work of the 2016 Duke iGEM team.
References
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