CPU_Nanjing
Pre-period
Because both of our teams had their sights set on the distant outer space at the same time and wanted to transform the alien soil at the same time, we brainstormed together after reaching a partnership in the early stages.
Pre-period
Although we both wanted to transform alien soil, we both chose different directions, but this did not prevent us from exchanging ideas about outer space. For example, some interesting alien science fiction movies, books about Mars, etc.With the pre-discussion, we both exchanged ideas for experiments with each other.
Medium-term cooperation
One of our four initial experimental ideas was to engineer nucleotide reductase to enhance DNA damage repair and thereby enable aerobic growth of Clostridium tyrobutyricum. As our lab schedule did not allow us to find the most suitable idea in a short time, we were grateful to the CPU-Nanjing team for their help, who used their lab resources to construct the plasmid for me free of charge after a thorough understanding with our labmates.
Medium-term cooperation
After their tireless efforts, they concluded that the plasmid construction in this way did not achieve the desired results with conventional methods. This has certainly given us an idea of what to do and has saved us resources and time in our experiments, for which we are very grateful. At the same time, we used our fermentation engineering resources to propose a method of composting algal cells for fermentation, giving the CPU-Nanjing team one route to take and more time to work on the second idea.
Post-exchange cooperation
We exchanged more Wet Lab related content in the early stages of the exchange process and a little more closely with our HP in the mid to late stages. We exchanged to some extent both the wiki, the present video and the education section. Both of our teams are working on the modification of alien soil to enable humans to live on alien planets, so we agreed to work together to produce a booklet on space breeding as an educational activity, hoping to draw the public's attention to outer space and to stimulate enthusiasm and curiosity about biology.
In September we also invited students from their team to our campus for an offline exchange and a tour of our lab, where CPU-Nanjing brought us their crushed algae extracts to provide new media for our modified strains. We invited them to join us for a tasting of our campus food.
NNU-China
25 May (online)
NNU-China had a general understanding of our research direction before this online meeting, namely the aerobic modification of Clostridium tyrobutyricum. We want to use Clostridium tyrobutyricum in an anaerobic environment on planets to improve the soil and prepare it for the subsequent arrival of humans and plants, ushering in the era of interstellar farmers.
25 May (online)
After learning about our research direction, they conducted a series of searches for relevant materials to provide them with a possible experimental idea in this online meeting: PerR is a hydrogen peroxide sensor, widely distributed in Gram-positive bacteria, and belongs to the Fur family of metal-binding transcription factors. By binding to a conserved sequence in the promoter of the gene it regulates, it inhibits the activity of the corresponding enzyme, resulting in the cell being unable to activate its own oxygen stress defence system to scavenge oxygen or reactive oxygen species and thus unable to survive in an aerobic environment.
25 May (online)
They therefore propose to engineer PerR transcriptional regulators for aerobic growth of Clostridium tyrobutyricum.We also learned about the research direction of Nanjing Normal University, that is, omega-3 eggs to start the journey of brain and body strengthening, with the intention of metabolic engineering to modify the lipolytic yeast to produce high yield of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, EPA and DHA with physiological functions such as prevention of cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease and promotion of body growth and development, and the market demand is high.
25 May (online)
In the hp section we exchanged inspirations for each other and the arrangements for later events, we also exchanged technical and script related issues on pv and confirmed the next meeting time and related preparations.
On the 25th of June we continued our second networking event using the online method
Further content for cooperative exchange
In this meeting we gave feedback on the experimental idea of engineering the PerR transcriptional regulator for aerobic growth of Clostridium tyrobutyricum that they had provided us with in the previous communication, after specific experiments: ΔPerR shortened the delay in cell growth and improved its tolerance to oxygen under aerobic conditions (100 rpm), however, under anaerobic conditions, the growth performance of the ΔPerR strain was weaker than the control strain under anaerobic conditions. We therefore summarize the experimental results in the previous part and discuss the experimental ideas for the next stage.
We understand that they are currently screening different sources of lipid elongase/desaturase, with C16:0 accounting for about 15% of the TFA of strain Po1f-2, and they have screened two different sources of C16/18 elongase gene from the reported literature: C16/18 elongase gene from Parietichytrium sp. and C16/18 elongase gene from rat, which are responsible for the conversion of C16:0 to C18:0 by carbon chain extension, with rElo2 having the best catalytic effect on C16:0, but they wanted to screen further enzymes from different sources, so we recommended C16/18 elongase gene from rat in this online communication.
We recommended the C16/18 elongase gene from Misgurnus anguillicaudatus to them in this online exchange, and they subsequently applied it to their experiments to see how well it catalyzes C16:0.
We hp exchanged information about the preparation of the CCiC, we asked NNU-China about the poster production problems we encountered and they gave us the perfect solution, and we also told them about the video captioning output techniques. We also invited them to the opening ceremony of our summer camp as special guests to open up different perspectives of synthetic biology for high school students.
26 July (off-line)
We provided them with the C16/18 elongase gene from Misgurnus anguillicaudatus, and after a series of experiments they concluded that the C16/18 elongase gene from Misgurnus anguillicaudatus did not catalyze C16:0 as well as rElo2 did. The effect was not as good as the catalytic effect of rElo2 on C16:0. We were also recommended in this offline exchange: C16/18 elongase gene from Mortierella alpina, which they subsequently applied further in their experiments to see its catalytic effect on C16:0.
We were very pleased to meet face-to-face with our collaborative team offline and we had an in-depth conversation about the progress of the HP, sharing our education progress and providing each other with advice on the production of the PV to help refine our scripts and production methods. We also agreed to co-organise an offline meet up for the teams in the Nanjing area as soon as the epidemic control allowed, and we are grateful to them for coming to help us with the education programme for high school students.
11 September (offline)
In this offline exchange, we were very pleased to learn that the C16/18 elongase gene from Mortierella alpina, which was recommended for them in the previous exchange, has proven to be very effective in catalyzing C16:0 after a series of their experiments and is now being applied by them to enhance the production of ω-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, i.e. EPA and DHA production.
We exchanged offline tips on the whole iGEM event as well as completing the editing of related materials, and we had a wonderful afternoon in the café.