Team:RHIT/Description
Mito Morphin' Power Yeast Project Description
General Overview
As an extension of Team RHIT’s 2015 iGEM project, the end goal of our project is to control aerobic and anaerobic respiration in yeast in order to optimize ethanol production. To this effect, we intend to manipulate the expression of a ribosomal protein coded for by the gene mRPS12 in the mitochondria of the yeast species Saccharomyces cerevisiae. While there may be more direct means of regulation (e.g., by enzymes ADH1 and ADH2), this project method will build a foundation for the potential optimization of production of other secondary metabolites.
Basic Trajectory and Parts
The first portion of the project is to verify the function of the two parts submitted by last year's team. These parts are the mRPS12 translational unit and the mRPS12 mitochondrial localization signal. We will start by creating yeast vectors that are compatible with the BioBrick standard prefix and suffix. These modified standard vectors will facilitate the cloning of parts into yeast cells in our project. Furthermore, other iGEM teams will be able to use them for similar practices in the future. The function of mls will be verified by linking it to GFP. The function of mRPS12 will be verified by transforming mRPS12 knock out yeast and testing for restored mitochondrial function using both fermentable and nonfermentable carbon sources.
Results
