Difference between revisions of "Team:Austin UTexas/Demonstrate"

Kombucha Strains

Key Achievements:

• Successfully isolated microbes from various samples of kombucha
• Identified strains of bacteria and yeast using rRNA gene sequencing
• Characterized each of the isolated microbes to facilitate further experimentation

Recapitulation

Key Achievements:

• In a process called "recapitulation," we successfully created kombucha by adding individual strains of microbes instead of a living kombucha culture containing the entire kombucha microbiome.
• Determined that the microbe Ga. hansenii is essential for the fermentation of kombucha.
• Determined that multiple strains of the yeast Lachancea fermentati are necessary for the fermentation of kombucha.

Conjugation

Key Achievements

• Unsuccessfully attempted conjugation with G. oxydans
• Performed minimum inhibitory concentration experiments between G. oxydans and spectinomycin, carbenicillin and kanamycin
• Determined that G. oxydans is resistant to spectinomycin and carbenicillin

Ethanol

Key Achievements

• Identified genes involved in the metabolism of ethanol to acetic acid in the bacterium Ga. hansenii.
• Designed Golden Gate parts for the assembly of these genes into a functional construct
• Used a bromothymol blue assay to compare changes in pH resulting from fermentation in multiple strains of Lachancea fermentati isolated from our kombucha

pH Sensors

Key Achievements

• Successfully created a neutral pH sensor.
• Characterized the P-atp2 Biobrick.
• Identified a potential pH sensor in Gluconobacter oxydans.