Team:Nagahama/Safety
Please visit the main Safety page to find this year's safety requirements & deadlines, and to learn about safe & responsible research in iGEM.
On this page of your wiki, you should write about how you are addressing any safety issues in your project. The wiki is a place where you can go beyond the questions on the safety forms, and write about whatever safety topics are most interesting in your project. (You do not need to copy your safety forms onto this wiki page.)
Safe Project Design
Does your project include any safety features? Have you made certain decisions about the design to reduce risks? Write about them here! For example:
- Choosing a non-pathogenic chassis
- Choosing parts that will not harm humans / animals / plants
- Substituting safer materials for dangerous materials in a proof-of-concept experiment
- Including an "induced lethality" or "kill-switch" device
Safe Lab Work
What safety procedures do you use every day in the lab? Did you perform any unusual experiments, or face any unusual safety issues? Write about them here!
Safe Shipment
Did you face any safety problems in sending your DNA parts to the Registry? How did you solve those problems?
What is your chassis organism?
E. coli K-12 JM109, DH5α, BL21
Do you plan to experiment with any other organisms, besides your chassis?
In our project, we will make a food preservation box with antibacterial fragrances such as geraniol and farnesol that are produced by engineered E. coli. To assess an effect of antibacterial fragrances against microorganisms, we utilize and Bacillus subtilis var. natto as well as E. coli.
What risks does your project pose at the laboratory stage? What actions are you taking to reduce those risks?
The marA activating AcrAB-TolC efflux pump, also efflux antibiotics from engineered E. coli, resulting more resistance of the engineered E. coli to antibiotics. Because the host E. coli has no toxic to human, there may be no risk to human safety. All engineered E. coli have been sterilized by autoclave sterilization. We use hexane to dilute geraniol and farnesol and use decane to collect antibacterial fragrances from E. coli culture. Hexane and decane are flammable. These solvents are not used beside the fire. We have worn rubber gloves and have sterilized all wastes to reduce the risks, including safety level 1 procedures.
What risks might your project pose, if it were fully developed into a real product that real people could use? What future work might you do to reduce those risks?
The food preservation box have the risk that the engineered organisms grow in food. We must need to separate them from food area by packing or separating with membrane filters that the engineered organisms cannot pass through. Only fragrances should be dispersed into food area. This approach will decrease the risk of food contamination by engineered organisms. In our project, we have used E. coli JM109 strain, a derivative of E. coli K-12 strain encoding auxotrophy, which cannot grow in natural field. The engineered organisms will be used under supplication of required nutrition, so they cannot grow outside the box.
