Team:Uppsala
Uppsala
Welcome to Uppsala iGEM 2017
Crafting Crocin
What are we doing?
We at Uppsala this year, are planning to make Alpha crocin in E.coli. Alpha-crocin, an apocarotenoid found in Crocus and Gardenia, is responsible for the red color of Saffron. Recent studies suggest that crocin may have several medicinal properties.Due to its colour, it could also be potentially used as a dye. It being a powerful antioxidant with interesting and not yet fully studied medicinal capabilities, large scale mass production of crocin would be of interest to further study its effects on the human body.Our team from 2013 already did the groundwork for us by developing zeaxanthin accumulating strain of E.coli. This year´s project is building up on that. We identified three enzymatic steps leading from zeaxanthin to crocin.
