Team:Pretoria UP
Project Abstract As we all know fossil fuels are running out and we need to find alternative and green energy sources. We have found a solution! The solution lies in combining the thylakoid membrane of plants` chlorophyll to a graphene plate (a superconductive carbon plate). When sunlight shines on the thylakoid membrane free electrons are generated and these electrons can be harvested to generate electricity. The key is to bind the thylakoid membrane to the graphene plate (this becomes the anode). In order to bind the thylakoid membrane we have engineered the sequence of short DNA pieces, called aptamers. One end of the aptamer binds specifically to the electron producing protein in the thylakoid membrane and the other side to the graphene plate. When electrons are then produced by the thylakoid membrane, they travel through the aptamer and to the graphene plate. Laccases is attached to the cathode which acts as an electron acceptor. This creates a potential difference and so are electricity generated by plants!
Read more on our Project Description page!
GoPro: Generate electricity using plant materials
Animation depicting a single-stranded DNA aptamer bound to stromal side of thylakoid protein: CP47.
Parts This year we submitted a total of 17 parts to the iGEM registry. We added 5 new basic parts: an SP6 promoter which can be used for in vitro expression of genes, as well as 4 eukaryotic Laccase proteins from Eucalyptus grandis. We designed and added 12 new composite parts to the registry: four eukaryotic laccase genes from Eucalyptus grandis, as well eight prokaryotic laccase genes, all of which has an SP6 promoter and a His(x6) tag at the 5’ end and a T7 terminator at the 3’ end.
Human practices During our Human Practices project we gained valuable knowledge from experts in the field. We held a synthetic biology workshop and symposium, and presented to 40 high school learners at our university's "UP with Science" day. We also used various platforms of social media to create awareness of both our project and the fun we had during it!
Collaboration
We collaborated with three different teams in the 2016 iGEM season.
We assisted team Macquarie by making a graphical user interface on MatLab showing how the concentration of various intermediates including ALA (Y-axis) changes over time (X-axis) in chlorophyll.
We created a documentary for team Aix-Marseille focusing on the socio-economic and political issues facing the current platinum sector, including the Marikana strikes.
Team Heidelberg 2015 ran their MAWS software to provide us with a target specific aptamer, in exchange for numerous candidate PDB files for them to test their system on, as wells as valuable feedback about how well their aptamer performed in our thylakoid binding experiments.
SIMULATION MODEL We constructed a simulation model of a photo-bioelectrochemical cell (PBEC) using AnyLogic to illustrate how different parameters would effect the efficiency of our cell. Changeable parameters include: light intensity
casing material (Perspex or glass), electrode size and whether or not to select thylakoid attachment by making use of aptamers. Read more about this on our Model page .
Team We had tons of fun getting to know each other while working throughout the winter and spring here in South Africa.
We would like to extend special thanks to the following organizations for their support:
References
Synthetic laccases and DNA aptamers for thylakoid tethering in photo-bioelectrochemical cells
Check out our Parts page for more information!
Click here to learn more about our team members.
