Team:ShanghaiTechChina B/Collaborations/FAFU
FAFU
As a new team of iGem, we do not have much experience in gene cloning. We got struck in one important step of our project— We could not add the promoter of NO sensing to the target plasmid. We tried several times using different methods but none was successful.
Fortunately, FAFU (Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University Fuzhou,Fujian,China) team from China is proficient in gene cloning and they were willing to help us. So we asked them for help and sent the DNA fragment of pNorV ( promoter of NO sensing) and our backbone to FAFU team. After two weeks, FAFU gave us a pleasant surprise—the promoter pNorV was inserted into the target plasmid. The work FAFU done was great news to us.
During the cooperation, we kept communicating with each other about the iGem competition. In their project, they transformed the Cry11Aa gene into Chlamydomonas reinhardti to kill the larvae of mosquitoes. They co-expressed Cry and Cyt by 2A-peptide system. cyt1 is a protein coding gene that codes for cytochrome c1 in Chlamydomonas reinhardti. Heme-containing component of the ubiquinol-cytochrome c reductase complex (complex III or cytochrome b-c1 complex), which is part of the mitochondrial respiratory chain that generates an electrochemical potential coupled to ATP synthesis. They wanted to get purified cytochrome c1 protein to study the property of it. But it is very difficult to purified a protein in Chlamydomonas reinhardti. They turned to our team because we can easily transform the gene into E. coli and purify the protein they need. They constructed a plasmid that contains cyt1 gene.
