Team:SiCAU-China

Hyperuricemia and refractory gout are caused by the high urate concentration in the blood. Considering there are still debates on whether the drug should be used in the asymptomatic hyperuricemia patients and the drug resistance of the refractory gout patients, new approaches are eagerly needed. We constructed the urate metabolic pathway in the probiotic E. coli Nissle 1917 and applied it in the gut to reduce the urate concentration in the blood indirectly. In addition, we built a dialysis-like device combined with modified bacteria to utilize the urate directly in the blood. Our solutions provide a suitable, long-term and non-drug treatment for the asymptomatic hyperuricemia patients and an ultimate treatment for the refractory gout patients.

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Antibiotic is one of the most popular drug in the world, it can be used in medical treatment, agriculture, food processing, research and so on. But overusing antibiotics may bring antibiotics residue to environment, which will cause potential damage to human and impact the ecotope. Nowadays there are some physical and chemical methods to detect antibiotics residue, but they often need high cost and complicated process. So this year our team focus on Biosensor, said to be a easier way to detect than traditional methods at a lower price, to realize the trace detection.

The positive feedback loop has been widely applied in synthetic biology, such as logic gates, oscillators, bistable circuit. Besides, the positive feedback loop is also an ultra-sensitive circuit, just like Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), even be used in quantitative expression detected. So we engineered a biosensor, which will be established a positive feedback loop using luxI/luxR system in E.coli, to achieve trace detection. Similar to the detect theory of real-time quantitative PCR, there will be a relation between the content of input signal and the time to open the loop. We will use this system to do some antibiotics leftover detections.