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

Revision as of 16:59, 17 October 2016

Demonstrate

Kombucha Strains

Conjugation

Recapitulation

Ethanol

pH

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 a kombucha-like culture by adding individual strains of microbes instead of a living 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

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

Found in literature sequences for 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.