Team:Lethbridge/Description
Amazing synthetic biology projects all have something in common. They need to deliver. Whether you are trying to cure a disease with a novel protein or small molecule, the last and most important step is delivering your innovations into cells. This is why we have focused on developing an innovative toolkit that utilizes Protein Nanocompartments (PNCs), otherwise known as nature’s delivery system, in order to custom design a delivery strategy for iGEM teams and scientists that intimately fits the needs of their projects.
Current Delivery Systems
What is Lorem Ipsum?
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
| Criteria | Naked Molecules | Microinjection | Electroporation | Lipofection | Viral Transduction | Protein Nanocompartments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Efficient | X | ✔ | ✔ | X | ✔ | ✔ |
| Modular | X | X | X | X | / | ✔ |
| Specific | X | ✔ | X | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Safe for Organisms | / | X | X | ✔ | X | ✔ |
Why Protein Nanocompartments?
What is Lorem Ipsum?
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
Applications
Drug delivery: PNCs with the capacity to specifically target the delivery of their cargo through aid of surface peptides have the potential to dramatically enhance drug delivery and effectiveness in therapeutics. An example of this would be to decrease harmful side effects of chemotherapeutics by targeting their delivery specifically to cancer cells. Additionally, controlling the concentration of small molecules that can enter the cell by encapsulation can help drug delivery and prevent corresponding toxicity[1].
Targeted Cell Transformations and Transfections: PNCs with the ability to deliver cargo into the cellular membrane of their target cell have the potential to dramatically increase the efficiency of transforming bacterial cells or transfecting eukaryotic cells with plasmid DNA or other agents[4].
Targeted Antibiotic delivery: The side effects of antibiotic use include harming the host’s endogenous “good” bacteria along with their targeted “bad” bacteria may be circumvented by using PNCs to specifically target the “bad” bacteria with antibiotics[7].
Vaccine development: PNCs have vast potential for the use of vaccines. Attaching linker sequences and other surface modifications to the capsid, as well as encapsulating immunogenic sequences can simplify the applications and productions of vaccines [10].
Gene therapy: By encapsulating a gene editing system like CRISPR, PNCs have the potential to deliver proteins capable of genetic modification to a specific tissue or population of cells. A benefit to targeted gene therapy is that it can help avoid genetic modification to all cells or even target gamete cells[8].
Invasive Species/Pest Control: PNCs have the potential to encapsulate a toxic agent that may be specifically targeted to a particular species or pest while preventing off target effects within the ecosystem. Partnering this technology with specific biological control agents can help to prevent invasive species introduction and limit the proliferation of pests[2].
Implementation of iGEM projects: Our team did an analysis of previous projects in Alberta from The University of Alberta, The University of Calgary, The University of Lethbridge, and the Lethbridge high school. Of the projects analyzed, ~25% had trouble implementing their project into the real world scenario they had designed it for. Encapsulating in protein nanocompartments would allow them to deliver their systems safely and efficiently, making their projects more successful.
Our System
What is Lorem Ipsum?
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.