To further describe our characterization of the DAS and LAA degradation tags, our team designed a visual representation of the relative degradation strengths.

From right to left, the average color intensity of tsPurple with no degradation tag, with the DAS degradation tag, and the LAA degradation tag are shown.
This light board, dubbed the BactoGlo, serves a few purposes. One was to visually represent our findings so that other research laboratories can be shown a scale to assist in making decisions regarding using a degradation tag on their protein because the relative luminosity differences will help simulate expected results in a laboratory setting.The second reason is for public outreach and presentations of our findings because our conclusions have a greater impact when the data is displayed in this format.

The above photos are of another model shown at the 2016 RESA Conference and the Atlanta Science Festival. Primarily serving a purpose of grabbing public attention, it is programmed via a small computer chip to change the luminosity of the lights from a high state to a low state depending on a change in the circuitry.
This represents precision metabolic engineering in cells with the luminosity being the ‘output’ of the cells. This model’s purpose was to represent how precision metabolic engineering allows cells to rapidly switch between different metabolic states (ie. differences in luminosity).