Team:TPHS San Diego

Welcome to iGEM 2018!

Your team has been approved and you are ready to start the iGEM season!

Overview

Fungal infections have detrimental impacts on agriculture and the environment by decreasing crop yield. In particular, Fusarium Wilt, a fungal disease caused by Fusarium oxysporum, affects a wide variety of crops that make up global food supply. Current treatments such as cultivation are costly, and fungal pathogens can acquire resistance to such treatments. To combat these challenges, our team will be targeting the breakdown of chitin, the primary component of all fungal cell walls. Chitin provides rigidity in fungal species and acts as a similar constituent found in exoskeletons of various organisms like arthropods and insects. Our proposed mechanism for the antifungal treatment is to degrade chitin through the use of chitinase, an enzyme designed for this purpose. Various chitinase isozymes act upon the varying chitin structures in different organisms, so chitinases LbCHI31 and LbCHI32 were selected as the anti-fungal agents against Fusarium oxysporum.

Procedural Outline

The goal of this project was to engineer a bacterial strain capable of secreting viable chitinase to attack the cellular stability and structures of Fusarium oxysporum, thereby inducing structural collapse of the fungal cell wall. A plasmid containing genes encoding for LbCHI31 production and secretion were used to transform bacteria using standard heatshock and recovery protocols. A Western blot mechanism was used for expression of LbCHI31 and LbCHI32. The respective plasmids were tested on chitin to prove effectiveness.

Before you start

Please read the following pages:

Styling your wiki

You may style this page as you like or you can simply leave the style as it is. You can easily keep the styling and edit the content of these default wiki pages with your project information and completely fulfill the requirement to document your project.

While you may not win Best Wiki with this styling, your team is still eligible for all other awards. This default wiki meets the requirements, it improves navigability and ease of use for visitors, and you should not feel it is necessary to style beyond what has been provided.

Uploading pictures and files

You must upload any pictures and files to the iGEM 2018 server. Remember to keep all your pictures and files within your team's namespace or at least include your team's name in the file name.

When you upload, set the "Destination Filename" to T--YourOfficialTeamName--NameOfFile.jpg. (If you don't do this, someone else might upload a different file with the same "Destination Filename", and your file would be erased!)

UPLOAD FILES

Wiki template information

We have created these wiki template pages to help you get started and to help you think about how your team will be evaluated. You can find a list of all the pages tied to awards here at the Pages for awards link. You must edit these pages to be evaluated for medals and awards, but ultimately the design, layout, style and all other elements of your team wiki is up to you!

Editing your wiki

On this page you can document your project, introduce your team members, document your progress and share your iGEM experience with the rest of the world!

Use WikiTools - Edit in the black menu bar to edit this page

EDIT PAGE

Tips

This wiki will be your team’s first interaction with the rest of the world, so here are a few tips to help you get started:

  • State your accomplishments! Tell people what you have achieved from the start.
  • Be clear about what you are doing and how you plan to do this.
  • You have a global audience! Consider the different backgrounds that your users come from.
  • Make sure information is easy to find; nothing should be more than 3 clicks away.
  • Avoid using very small fonts and low contrast colors; information should be easy to read.
  • Start documenting your project as early as possible; don’t leave anything to the last minute before the Wiki Freeze. For a complete list of deadlines visit the iGEM 2018 calendar
  • Have lots of fun!

Inspiration

You can also view other team wikis for inspiration! Here are some examples: