SJTU-BioX-Shanghai

==Description== The pigments, such as lycopene, have the great potential for reporter system establishment owing to the visualization. However, it has a main disadvantage which is the leaky expression, making the precise regulation become difficult. So, here we first introduce small transcription activating RNAs (STAR) to optimize the lycopene reporter system in E. coli. However, when it comes to a complex system, with many factors we need to detect, lycopene itself cannot meet our satisfaction. The chromoproteins, which containing different pigmented nonprotein group, can provide rich colors for multiple signals indicating. Furthermore, by mixing two types of chromoproteins, we can create a third color with a series of different chromaticity, which can be taken as the characterization of the relative abundance of two signal molecules. For example, if we choose cjBlue and fwYellow, we can detect 2 kinds of heavy-metal ions accurately by the color of this system. Then different colors will indicate different concentration of these heavy-metal ions. It seems that we can make a convenient report system, but we are not pleased with this result. Since we are willing to make a new application that can be used by the public, we introduced microfluid chip technology into our project. By an application in our smartphone, a chip and a scaffold, we can easily tell the concentration of 2 kinds of heavy-metal ions. This technology makes the reaction system smaller, more portable and more sensitive. The product will be cheap as well. Additionally, not only we can use this system to detect heavy-metal ions in different habitats, but we can also use it to detect various disease factors or other complex systems at home conveniently. The prospect of this application can be expanding.