Team:Kobe

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Welcome to project description!

The aim of our project is to create a biosensor for measuring the concentration of theanine.

Theanine is an amino acid primarily found in particular plant, especially in tea plant (Camellia sinensis).
It has been said that drinking green tea brings the feeling of relaxation.
This effect was studied and it was found that L-theanine boosts alpha brain waves, promoting relaxation.
Plus theanine is closely related to the “umami” (Japanese word that means pleasant savory taste) of green tea.
For these reasons, tea containing a lot of theanine is considered to be high-quality green tea.

Currently, near-infrared spectroscopy method are used to evaluate components of tea leaf objectively and precisely.
However, it is very costly. Besides, it doesn’t help in measuring the regular tea that we drink every day, because concentration of theanine in liquid tea is not high enough to be detected precisely.

To reduce operarion cost and improve sensitivity, we aimed to use synthetic biology method to evaluate the content of theanine in green tea.
Our method includes to identify the genes from B.subtillis that express well in the presence of theanine, and to controll the expression of the genes under the condition of green tea solution.