Team:BGU ISRAEL
Abstract
Plastic pollution effects on our eco system is a major concern, damging our envoirment and causing harm to plants, animals and humans. As plastic exists only for about 100 years, evolution could not catch up and the natural biodegredtion is slow and inefficient meanwhile plastic has been massivly accumulating in nature.
We, the BGU iGEM team want to solve this problem combing tools of exerimental evolution, synthetic biology and computational biology. Using these tools we made three different approches to try and solve the problem:
- Serial passaging of the bacteria Rhodococcus ruber which has been found to bio-degrade plastic, we hope to enhance the ability of it to biodegrade using this tool.
- Raional mutation design - Using PROSS we aim to improve the catalytic activity of the enzyme LC-Cutinase which break down PET to terephthalate and ethylene glycol.
- Genetic engineering of metabolic pathways–we will modify two metabolic pathways using engineered enzymatic cascades which will be transformed into Pseudomonas putida
