Our Project

Crude oil is composed of many complex PAHs (approximately one third of crude oil is complex aromatics) that are difficult to degrade and destroy vital components in our marine and terrestrial ecosystems. It is pertinent to find a time and cost effective procedure that will catabolize some of the most prevalent, toxic PAHs in crude oil --fluorene, phenanthrene, and naphthalene--to salicylate, an innocuous compound able to be degraded in metabolic cycles. Certain bacteria utilize intermediates in their degradative pathways to break down such PAHs. These intermediates create simpler pathways that result in lesser complication regarding gene combination and nucleotide sequencing.

We propose a novel methodology of degradation of multiple PAHs through combinational implementation of these bacteria-derived pathways into Escherichia Coli. Thus, this treatment will allow for broad spectrum transformation of multiple PAHs within the same oil environment into safer residues. By incorporating a fluorescent protein within the genetic structure of our engineered bacteria, the monitoring and isolation of the bacteria from the spill site will be easily achievable. These bacteria can then be implemented in the field to clean various oil spills and/or used in bioreactors, achieving efficient detoxification through combinational genetic bioremediation.

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