Team:USP UNIFESP-Brazil/Proof
Our iGEM idea was not only to produce spider silk proteins and antibiotics. We also aimed to expand the tools and improve Chlamydomonas reinhardtii as a chassis for synthetic biology! We were able to transform through electroporation and successfully express a reporter protein, mCherry, in Chlamydomonas and detect its fluorescence. Our composite part, BBa_K2136010 will be of great value for any other teams working with microalgae in iGEM’s future!
Even though this organism offers exciting possibilities, as well as many other photosynthetic chassis, a limited number of parts is available for synthetic work is available in the registry. That motivated us to change this and help the growth of this part of the synbio community!
One of our goals within iGEM was to develop a “Chlamydomonas molecular toolkit”, with basic parts for everyone’s use. We had a construct, BBa_K2136010, synthesized by IDT gBlocks technology which included:
- An enhancer/promoter construct for transcription, BBa_K2136013
- A resistance gene, selection marker, against the antibiotic zeocin, BBa_K2136014
- A self cleaving peptide from foot-and-mouth disease virus, BBa_K2136017
- A signal peptide which enable secretion of the protein of interest, BBa_K2136018
