Team:Fudan-CHINA

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STEP

iGEM 2018 team:Fudan-CHINA

Description

Synthetic Transducer Engineering Platform (STEP)

As the primary cause of death, cancer has long been threatening life of human. Modular receptor systems have become a hotspot of cancer therapy, while existing synthetic systems (CAR-T, synNotch, etc) are only capable of recognising membrane protein rather than soluble ligands, which are also important targets. To address this problem, we designed Synthetic Transducer Engineering Platform (STEP), which is aimed to convert extracellular stimulation of soluble ligands into a reporter gene signal. STEP consists of two separate transmembrane chains, one with an intracellular domain of a transcription factor and the other with a protease. Binding of ligands and the two chains will lead to a cleavage event and release the transcription factor, thus triggering desired gene expression, e.g., secretion of drugs. With its extra- and intra-cellular domain being highly programmable, STEP provides a general yet orthogonal platform of ligand recognition, and a new approach of targeting therapy of cancer.