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.
