Dalhousie’s iGEM team has sufficiently met all of the criteria to achieve gold this year.
First, to achieve bronze status, we have completed all necessary paperwork, and intend on sending nine members to the iGEM jamboree. We also have completed all deliverables, including a wiki with proper attribution page, safety forms, and have prepared a twenty-minute presentation for the jamboree. Finally, we participated in an inter-lab study which compared the expression of a GFP between promoters.
Next to achieve silver, we sent two biobricks: beta-xylanase and beta-glucosidase, both of which were characterised by via enzyme activity using glycoside substrates conjugated to fluorophores. Fold increase of relative light units (RLUs) versus empty vector (pET26b) indicated enzyme activity against the glycoside substrates (either cellobiose or xylobiose). In addition, beta-glucosidase containing BL21 DE3 E. coli were plated onto agar plates containing cellobiose as the only usable carbon source. As E. coli lack the enzymes to cleave cellobiose into usable glucose, the bacteria had to use the introduced beta-glucosidase to survive. Thus, growth on this media confirmed that the bacteria were using the enzyme effectively and successfully.
Collaborations were done with several other teams, including university of Waterloo, University of Toronto and University of Calgary. With Waterloo, we provided our cloning expertise and assisted in designing primers, in exchange, they trained our members in metagenomic library construction. With Toronto, we provided information about our team for their podcast, in exchange they filled out our questionnaire on science communication. With Calgary, we summarised our work for their newsletter, while they provided a platform for Canadian iGEM teams to explain their projects. For our human practices, we interviewed many experts on science communication and enticing industries to adopt our technology.
To achieve gold, we decided to integrate our human practices and improve a part from a previous project. To integrate our human practices, we incorporated what we have learned from experts into our current plan to make a product that appeals to industries. We have improved the endoglucanase gene that was submitted by our team last year by adding a N terminal PelB leader sequence and C terminal His tag.
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