Team:Hong Kong HKUST/NUS
Collaborations with
iGEM team NUS Singapore
Modelling
The iGEM team from the National University of Singapore offered us a model to snapshot the dynamic of our tristable system. A simulation model was built, based on chemical kinetics which assumes that the system is spatially homogenous i.e. diffusion of all molecules are neglected.
This class of modelling approach simplifies the analysis, which is capable of capturing most of the properties of our system accurately. Nonetheless, the formulation approach, that considers diffusion processes as negligible may give rise to the loss of certain amount of information, which associated with molecular diffusion, can be critical to some special dynamic of the system.
To tackle this, NUS helped us in developing a diffusion framework by applying their RIOT modelling system. Grounded on our original chemical-kinetics-based ODE model, NUS modeler incorporated modules, which describe the diffusion of the repressors, fluorescent proteins, and both intracellular and extracellular inducers.
Thanks to their work, we have a more detailed and comprehensive understanding of the behaviour of our system on molecular level.
Construct Characterisation
In order to assist NUS to verify their characterisation data, we were characterising four of their constructs with different strengths processing a lactate responsive promoter and a sfGFP reporter gene on our end. Assay method was provided by NUS.
But it seemed to us that the bacteria culture did not grow well after transformation, and the blank solution also showed very high fluorescence signals, which were not compatible with the data obtained in NUS, making the results incomparable.
*To learn more about the project of NUS Singapore iGEM team, please go to here.
