Team:UMaryland/Model
Modeling
Why Degrade to PCA?
Our PET degradation system is entirely cell free, created from lysed cells that have had the pathway enzymes inserted into their genomes as plasmids. PET degradation starts with the cleavage of the monomers of PET into their constituents, MHET and TPA, by the enzyme PETase.
We created cells that can act as a sensor for PET degradation. When the cells import PCA (a molecule produced from degraded TPA, which is produced from degraded PET), PCAU binds to PCA, creating activated PCAU. Using activated PCAU as the promoter for GFP translation, the cells will fluoresce green in the presence of PCA, showing that PET degradation has occurred.
All of the parameters of our model have been taken from experimentally verified results, and we have verified the validity of our model by successfully detecting PCA using our modified cells.
We attempted to go further down the degradation pathway with the same cells metabolising PCA into 3-carboxy-cis,cis-muconate, but were unsuccessful. We leave this part of the pathway to future IGEM teams and researchers.
We created cells that can act as a sensor for PET degradation. When the cells import PCA (a molecule produced from degraded TPA, which is produced from degraded PET), PCAU binds to PCA, creating activated PCAU. Using activated PCAU as the promoter for GFP translation, the cells will fluoresce green in the presence of PCA, showing that PET degradation has occurred.
All of the parameters of our model have been taken from experimentally verified results, and we have verified the validity of our model by successfully detecting PCA using our modified cells.
We attempted to go further down the degradation pathway with the same cells metabolising PCA into 3-carboxy-cis,cis-muconate, but were unsuccessful. We leave this part of the pathway to future IGEM teams and researchers.
Explaination of our Parameters
It's really long. Just download this Excel file instead.
Results of Simulation
Figure 1 - Results of the model
Comparison to Experimental Results
Contact Us
umarylandigem@gmail.com
Biology - Psychology Building
4094 Campus Dr, College Park, MD 20742
umarylandigem@gmail.com
Biology - Psychology Building
4094 Campus Dr, College Park, MD 20742
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