Team:McMasterU/Model
DNAzyme Model
The bacterial detection ability of our RNA cleaving DNAzyme was mathematically modelled to visualize sensitivity. In the presence of E. coli, the catalytic activity of the DNAzyme creates fluorescence which can be detected and recorded. The fluorescence emitted by a fixed quantity of DNAzyme in the presence of varying numbers of E. coli cells was tested at over a series of time-points. The experiment was performed in triplicate, where the wells contained reaction buffer in addition to cells and DNAzyme. Blank wells were also included in this experiment which contained the same numbers of cells as the experimental conditions and reaction buffer. The blank-corrected fluorescence emitted by the DNAzyme was determined by taking the mean fluorescence emitted by the DNAzyme for each number of cells and subtracting the fluorescence recorded from the blank well containing that same number of cells. The mean fluorescence was computed this way for each number of cells across all time points. When the relative fluorescence units were plotted against the log of cell number, we observed a positive linear correlation between fluorescence and number of cells. There was no significant correlation observed between fluorescence and time, across all numbers of cells.
