Project description :

Climatic disorders lead to the appearance of extreme temperature events, whether frost or dryness, negatively impacting crops production and the global agriculture sector economy.
In 2016, 60% of the French vineyard cultures were destroyed due to frosts. To solve this, we aim at creating a thermosensitive biological tool named Softer Shock, providing an agro-environmental remedy for farmers. The bacteria retained in our solution will specifically produce a biological protectant designed to prevent the dryness phenomena above 37°C and frost damages below 15°C. The duality of this “2 in 1” biological function finds its properties activated in response to meteorological events, and a capacity of definitive bacterial auto-destruction after activation. These biological qualities fall within the respect of French and European regulatory requirements towards their potential impact on biodiversity.

The underlying scientific principle is to engineer a thermo-inducible plasmid that will be transferred to a bacterium (E. coli). The objective is to make the bacterium produce specific compounds for both high and low temperatures. As a proof of concept, we chose the blue chromoprotein AmilCP as the compound to be expressed at low temperatures, and the red fluorescent protein eRFP as the compound to be expressed at hot temperatures. The cold and heat shock strategies will be based on two new parts allowing the specific expression of the two compounds at the desired temperature ranges. If this proof of concept works, we will be able to adapt our constructions to any compound of choice and apply it for plant protection.