Team:SCU China

Rhythmic Production of Melatonin in E.coli

Nowadays, insomnia and circadian rhythm disorders are increasingly plaguing individuals' daily life. According to NIH reports, around 50-70 million U.S. adults are suffering from sleep insufficiency and poor-quality sleep. The circadian rhythm in human is predominantly under the regulation of melatonin, a hormone produced by pineal gland periodically. This year we want to use engineered E.coli to mimic this process in human. We propose to construct a melatonin biosynthesis pathway in E.coli to produce melatonin, while simultaneously couple this process with periodically-optimized repressilator, a synthetic genetic oscillator with higher precision, with the intention to render melatonin production resemble mammalian periodicity in E.coli.