Team:Stony Brook/Model

Stony Brook 2017

Phylogenetic analysis requires little pre-existing literature in order to construct a predictive evolutionary model, because a phylogeny’s strength of prediction is based on analysis of biological sequences, data that is now readily available. This method of modeling is favorable for novel bacteriocin research because of the limited literature available for these bacteriocins.

The hybrid bacteriocin lacticin Q-lacticin Z was successfully created by University of Southern Denmark’s 2016 iGEM team [1]. Because these class II lacticin bacteriocins have been hybridized before, we hypothesize that the lacticin bacteriocin, lacticin Z, will have a greater affinity for hybridization with another bacteriocin that is evolutionarily similar to itself. Through the reconstruction of a phylogenetic tree and through review of past literature, we determined two bacteriocins that are suitable for hybridization: aureocin A53 and epidermicin NI01.