Keycoli

The first biological password that changes over time!

• Microorganism is transformed using BioBricks to produce secondary metabolites, initially the metabolites will be a simpler product such as fluorescent proteins. The secondary metabolites will be produced in a unique and random configuration and as as our "key". In order to produce this randomness, shuffling of metabolite expression levels via transposons or error prone RNase will be applied. To produce a unique configuration of the metabolite varying promoter expression levels will produce unique metabolites. This key will be used to open locked mechanism such as safes and secure doors.
• For the key to be practical it would need to be portable, this is where our key transport device comes in. It will consist of a similar design to a chemostat. Our Key colony metabolites will degrade a desired amount of time before they must be renewed from the Lock colony, when this occurs the configuration of the key is shuffled once again to ensure the key and lock are changing.
• Once the key has been transported to the locked object a juxtaposition of a detection technique such as gas chromotography or mass spectrometry and data comparison software will compare the secondary metabolites of the "key" microorganism to the "reference/lock" colony. If the metabolies of both colonies exceeds a threshold of similarity the locked object will become unlocked.

Transposon selection

Tn7 Transposon used due to specific target site selection for its transposition, which is impossible in other transposon species, without this modular increases in promoter activity could not be achieved as random insertions would create a gradient rather than step wise expression pattern of proteins.

Promoter selection

Promoters are selected to have a greatly varied production of products. These will then allow easy recognition of each level 0-3

Bacterial Key Transport

There is a need for a transport mechanism for the key. This presents problems depending on the bacteria used.

In Ecoli Our key transport system would need to:

• Keep our colonies alive for a few days.
• Potentially could freeze. Freezing is one of the best ways to store bacteria.
• The lower the temperature the longer the culture will retain viable cells.
• PROBLEM: Ice can damage cells due to localised accumulation of salt, it can also rupture membranes.
• SOLUTION: Use glycerol as a cryoprotectant

Sponsors

Here are our sponsors. FEEL FREE TO EXPAND

• Prince of Nigeria

Possible Metabolites

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