Difference between revisions of "Team:iTesla-SoundBio/Description"

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<h1>Description</h1>
 
<h1>Description</h1>
  
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<p>Tell us about your project, describe what moves you and why this is something important for your team.</p>
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<div id="out"><p>What are PCBs?
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Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a class of man-made chemicals that contaminate many of the world’s lakes and waterways1. They were originally produced for industrial and commercial applications, and although their manufacture has been banned since the 1970s, these deadly toxins are still present in the environment today, mainly due to bioaccumulation, as well as due to the improper disposal of old electrical equipment. It has been known for several decades that PCBs do eventually break down, but because they are highly nonreactive and resistant to acids, bases, and heat, their rate of decomposition in the environment is slow. The pathway by which they are broken down was only recently discovered. A bacterium called Dehalococcoides mccartyi has been observed to break down PCBs with a variety of enzymes, the genes for three of which (pcbA1, pcbA4, and pcbA5) were sequenced in 2014 by Wang2. The figure below depicts the dechlorinating mechanism of these three genes on PCB and PCE (tetrachloroethene) molecules.</p><br>
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<h5>What should this page contain?</h5>
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<img src="https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2017/a/ad/T--iTesla-SoundBio--description1.png" align="center" />
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<p><i>Image courtesy of PNAS2</i></p>
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<li> A clear and concise description of your project.</li>
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<br>
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<li>A detailed explanation of why your team chose to work on this particular project.</li>
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<p>Why is this an issue? <br>
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<li>References and sources to document your research.</li>
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PCBs are probable human carcinogens, have acute toxic effects, and can cause significant impairment of the immune system and thyroid. They are also known to disrupt hormone functions and generate developmental issues - women exposed to PCBs can give birth to children with significant neurological and motor control problems1. Compared to other waterways, the Washington Puget Sound has a considerably high level of PCBs, which bioaccumulate in organisms over the years. For native predators such as the orca, the biomagnification of PCBs up the food chain has been severely detrimental3.</p>
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<li>Use illustrations and other visual resources to explain your project.</li>
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<p>As stated before, the bacterium Dehalococcoides mccartyi has the ability to dechlorinate PCBs, thereby reducing their toxicity. However, D. mccartyi is an anaerobic species, and can only obtain energy through organohalide respiration. This makes them difficult to work with in terms of practical applications.</p><br>
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<p>What is our solution? <br>
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In our project, we aim to transfer pcbA1, pcbA4, and pcbA5 - the genes responsible for producing the PCB-dechlorinating enzymes - into E. coli bacteria. Unlike D. mccartyi, E. coli is able to thrive in aerobic environments such as oceans and waterways, making them a much more suitable species to use in potential PCB cleanup operations. Our end goal is the production of a technology that uses the E.coli-produced dechlorinating enzymes to facilitate PCB cleanup, or the development of a process containing this genetic pathway that can be executed in PCB-contaminated environments.</p>
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<p>References:</p>
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<li>Hudson River Sloop Clearwater. <a href="http://www.clearwater.org/news/pcbhealth.html">http://www.clearwater.org/news/pcbhealth.html</a> (accessed August 7, 2017).</li>
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<h5>Advice on writing your Project Description</h5>
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<li>Bedard, Donna L. PCB dechlorinases revealed at last. PNAS 2014, 111(33), 11919-11920. <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/111/33/11919.full">http://www.pnas.org/content/111/33/11919.full</a></li>
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<li>B.C. Cetacean Sightings Network. <a href="http://wildwhales.org/threats/toxins/">http://wildwhales.org/threats/toxins/</a> (accessed August 7, 2017).</li>
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We encourage you to put up a lot of information and content on your wiki, but we also encourage you to include summaries as much as possible. If you think of the sections in your project description as the sections in a publication, you should try to be consist, accurate and unambiguous in your achievements.  
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Judges like to read your wiki and know exactly what you have achieved. This is how you should think about these sections; from the point of view of the judge evaluating you at the end of the year.
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<h5>References</h5>
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<p>iGEM teams are encouraged to record references you use during the course of your research. They should be posted somewhere on your wiki so that judges and other visitors can see how you thought about your project and what works inspired you.</p>
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<h5>Inspiration</h5>
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<p>See how other teams have described and presented their projects: </p>
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<li><a href="https://2016.igem.org/Team:Imperial_College/Description">2016 Imperial College</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://2016.igem.org/Team:Wageningen_UR/Description">2016 Wageningen UR</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:UC_Davis/Project_Overview"> 2014 UC Davis</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://2014.igem.org/Team:SYSU-Software/Overview">2014 SYSU Software</a></li>
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Revision as of 01:59, 1 November 2017

Description

What are PCBs? Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a class of man-made chemicals that contaminate many of the world’s lakes and waterways1. They were originally produced for industrial and commercial applications, and although their manufacture has been banned since the 1970s, these deadly toxins are still present in the environment today, mainly due to bioaccumulation, as well as due to the improper disposal of old electrical equipment. It has been known for several decades that PCBs do eventually break down, but because they are highly nonreactive and resistant to acids, bases, and heat, their rate of decomposition in the environment is slow. The pathway by which they are broken down was only recently discovered. A bacterium called Dehalococcoides mccartyi has been observed to break down PCBs with a variety of enzymes, the genes for three of which (pcbA1, pcbA4, and pcbA5) were sequenced in 2014 by Wang2. The figure below depicts the dechlorinating mechanism of these three genes on PCB and PCE (tetrachloroethene) molecules.



Image courtesy of PNAS2


Why is this an issue?
PCBs are probable human carcinogens, have acute toxic effects, and can cause significant impairment of the immune system and thyroid. They are also known to disrupt hormone functions and generate developmental issues - women exposed to PCBs can give birth to children with significant neurological and motor control problems1. Compared to other waterways, the Washington Puget Sound has a considerably high level of PCBs, which bioaccumulate in organisms over the years. For native predators such as the orca, the biomagnification of PCBs up the food chain has been severely detrimental3.

As stated before, the bacterium Dehalococcoides mccartyi has the ability to dechlorinate PCBs, thereby reducing their toxicity. However, D. mccartyi is an anaerobic species, and can only obtain energy through organohalide respiration. This makes them difficult to work with in terms of practical applications.


What is our solution?
In our project, we aim to transfer pcbA1, pcbA4, and pcbA5 - the genes responsible for producing the PCB-dechlorinating enzymes - into E. coli bacteria. Unlike D. mccartyi, E. coli is able to thrive in aerobic environments such as oceans and waterways, making them a much more suitable species to use in potential PCB cleanup operations. Our end goal is the production of a technology that uses the E.coli-produced dechlorinating enzymes to facilitate PCB cleanup, or the development of a process containing this genetic pathway that can be executed in PCB-contaminated environments.



References:

  1. Hudson River Sloop Clearwater. http://www.clearwater.org/news/pcbhealth.html (accessed August 7, 2017).
  2. Bedard, Donna L. PCB dechlorinases revealed at last. PNAS 2014, 111(33), 11919-11920. http://www.pnas.org/content/111/33/11919.full
  3. B.C. Cetacean Sightings Network. http://wildwhales.org/threats/toxins/ (accessed August 7, 2017).