Team:Lethbridge HS/Improve
Parts Improved
We improved all of the basic parts we used by putting them into the composite parts that we used. The T7 promoter that we had at the beginning of each construct and our use of the T7 system in the Escherichia coli strain BL21(DE3) Is an improvement to each of the basic parts. This system allows us to control when the gene is being expressed. This is a great advantage to us as large batch culture verexpression is very stressful on the cells. If we did not use an inducible promoter on our genes we would see significantly less pigment than our literature would lead us to expect. This is due to the fact that the genes we are using have been optimized to produce the maximum amount of pigment possible, and this process on a single young cell would be very stressful and significantly increase the doubling time of the cells. We have induced the cells after they have replicated many times and matured, this allows us to have more cells with the construct that can produce more pigment faster.
