Team:Paris Bettencourt/Active Testing


Active Testing

Following the production phase of our project, we had 10 StarCore constructs to test. We set out to characterize their antimicrobial properties and mechanism of action. We had many questions in the following categories.

  • Unbalanced amino acid usage, with a high density of lysine and arginine residues.

  • High density of positive charges, leading to misfolding and aggregation.

  • Direct toxicity to cell components caused by AMP activity.

    • Results

    StarCores kill bacteria at micromolar concentrations

    We evaluated the impact of StarCores on bacterial growth by treating bacterial cultures with the fusion proteins and monitoring the OD 600 through time. Representative results are shown in Fig. 1.

    Centre for Research and Interdisciplinarity (CRI)
    Faculty of Medicine Cochin Port-Royal, South wing, 2nd floor
    Paris Descartes University
    24, rue du Faubourg Saint Jacques
    75014 Paris, France
    paris-bettencourt-2018@cri-paris.org