Team:Jilin China

GeneGuard: A modular plasmid system designed for chlorophenol degradation.

2017Jilin_China takes biosafety into our major concern. Our research interst has been attracted to Chlorophenol, one important raw material in organic synthesis. Though widely used in industrial and agricultural production, the water pollution resulted from the leakage or non-compliance of the emissions becomes a huge threaten to human health. Therefore, we designed a self-regulated circuit with the protein DmpR as the sensor to identify chlorophenol signals and its derivation, and to initiate expression of the two critical enzymes-- monooxygenase and dioxygenase in two E.coli strains for degradation of chlorophenol in water. Additionally, we added a toxin-antitoxin (TA) system for the self-regulation of E.coli growth. In the absence of pollutants, the engineered bacteria will express toxin that can inhibit their own growth. When exposed to contaminants, the expressing of antitoxin will be initiated and block the toxicity, bringing bacteria back to normal, so that the purification mission will be completed.