On July 16, the NNU-China 2022 team participated in the online Meetup jointly organized by Guangxi University, Jiangnan University, Northwestern Polytechnical University and Jilin University. 28 universities participated in the Meetup, including Nanjing Normal University, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Zhejiang University. IGEMers from various universities share their project progress and activities experience, communicate and learn from each other, and help each other.

Fig1: screenshot of the meetup

First of all, Dean Chen Xianzhong of the School of Biological Engineering of Jiangnan University delivered the opening speech for this Meetup. Then, Senior Zhou Ting 'an will share the competition experience for the teams participating in this Meetup. Zhou Ting 'an has rich experience in iGEM competition, and his sharing has a very good reference for other team projects.

Fig2: screenshot of the meetup

Through this Meetup, we strengthened our contact with other iGEM teams. In the process of communication, we also learned a lot and saw many excellent teams and their ideas.

On August 6, the NNU-China 2022 team participated in the online Meetup hosted by the WorldShaper-Hz, Zju-China and Zju-China teams. iGEMers from each team communicated and learned from each other by sharing the project progress and activity experience with each other. During the conference, we had an in-depth discussion and communication with Pang Aiping, Professor from Zhejiang University of Technology. Pang suggested that the taste of polyunsaturated fatty acids from different sources, as well as the degree of absorption in animals and plants, could be included in the evaluation indicators. The professor's comments gave us a lot of inspiration to find more possible directions for the project.

Fig3: Show team project

Fig4: Group photo of participants

From August 18th to August 22nd, our team participated in the 9th China iGEMer Exchange Conference (CCiC). CCiC is currently the largest regional iGEMer conference event in the world, aiming to build a platform for iGEMer in China. During the meeting, all teams shared their project progress and activity experience. We exchanged learning and opinions with each other. The communication played a great role in improvement and promotion of the project. At the same time, we got a lot of cooperation opportunities. We are very grateful to the experienced team and experts whose advice has greatly improved the model and HP optimization of this project.

Fig5: Show team project

Fig6: Group photo of participants

Fig7: Certificate of Participation

On September 11th, our team participated in an exchange activity organized by the University of Macau and Macau Pui Ching Middle School. UM, PuiChing_Macau, Tec CEM and W&M University also attended the conference.Five teams from home and abroad communicated their projects through the ZOOM conference. They put forward their optimization plans for the project of Macau PuiChing Middle School this year. Through this conference, our team has been inspired in Wiki and model.Our team would like to thank the University of Macau and Macau Pui Ching Middle School for this opportunity.

Fig8: screenshot

Fig9: Group photo of participants

On September 6, we received an invitation from National Tsing Hua University to join their collaborative project: iGEM MAP-Navigation in Synthetic Biology. Each team will design a character to represent their project. The NTHU team will use each team's character to mark the location of each team and promote the project. The map will be uploaded to the Wiki.At that time, you will meet teams from all over the world, like a global village.

https://2022.igem.wiki/nthu-taiwan/map

Fig10: iGEM MAP display

On July 20th, our team received an email from the team of the University of Copenhagen asking for help. In the following half month, our team kept in touch with them and helped them interview fishermen and take photos of fishermen in the coastal areas of China. The University of Copenhagen is grateful for our help and says their team is ready to help if we need it.

Fig11: Email exchange

On July 22, 2022, we held an online communication meeting with the HainanU-China team of Hainan University. During the meeting, we first introduced the theme and progress of the project. Then we presented the posters and illustrated books we had made ourselves. At the end, we shared our design ideas and production methods. Afterwards, the HainanU-China team also gave a brief introduction of their project. They said that they had gained a lot of inspiration through this meeting, especially our sharing was a great reference and value for their future publicity design and production. At the end of the meeting, both sides expressed their gratitude to each other for participating in the exchange.

Fig12: Screenshot of online communication

In August, we got in touch with the CPU_China team. As we were very interested in each other's topics, we had several exchanges online and offline, covering various aspects such as experimental protocol optimisation and web design.

On 15 August, we had our first online exchange with the CPU_China team, briefly introducing the background significance and research direction of our respective topics and sharing our experience in team operation.

On 3 September, our team had a second web discussion with the CPU_China team on how to improve the activity of the enzyme. After the discussion, the CPU_China team provided us with the suggestion of using a semi-rational design approach for protein modification. They expressed their willingness to provide technical support for our experiments.

This provided us with a new idea for optimising our experimental protocol. On 8 September, we invited the CPU_China team to visit our lab for an offline exchange. Apart from exchanging experimental progress, discussing problems and solutions, we also exchanged ideas on various aspects such as web design and layout, material writing and flow charting. The exchange with the CPU_China team was very beneficial to us.

Fig13: Two teams communicating offline

Fig14: The CPU team visits the lab

Fig15: The CPU team give us the bacterium

Fig16: group photo

On 10 September, we participated in an online conference organised by Worldshaper-Shanghai with over 10 teams. The aim of the conference was to share the themes and research progress of each team. In addition to this, we have invited Professor Wu Jiequn from Zhejiang University of Technology to evaluate the themes of the teams and give academic guidance. Professor Wu spoke highly of our project and expressed great interest in it.

Fig17: group photo

Fig18: Screenshot of online activity

In August, we got in touch with the USTCteam. Through an online meeting, we briefly exchanged information about our research topics and the practical activities (Human Practices) we had carried out. Afterwards, we discussed the experimental part in depth and decided on an exchange learning programme to exchange high quality promoters and screening markers for more obvious experimental breakthroughs.

At the end of August, we provided the URA screening markers to the USTC team. The yeasts we used are all URA-deficient and can only grow properly when a URA-containing gene fragment is introduced, so the marker can be used to determine whether the gene fragment is successfully bound to the yeast genome. In addition, the URA reacts with 5-fluoroorotic acid to produce a toxic substance, so the yeast then loses the URA gene in order to grow, allowing the marker to be used multiple times. It is hoped that the USTC team will be able to make further experimental progress with this marker.

The USTC team has provided us with a promoter that can efficiently express the target gene. We recombined this promoter with a gene for an enzyme that controls the synthesis of Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid precursors, transferred it into yeast, fermented it and measured the product content. Through a series of experiments, we explored whether the promoter can efficiently express the target gene to improve the content of DHA in the final product.

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Fig19: A souvenir from the University of Science and Technology

Fig20: Experiments using screening markers provided by the University of Science and Technology

FIg21: Design primers for the updated promoters

FIg22: Glue map

On August 5, NNU-China 2022 and NJTech_China team jointly held Education&Meet Up at the Nanjing Jiangbei New Area Biomedical Public Technology Service Platform. This event also invited Nanjing University (NJU-China), Nanjing Medical University (NJMU-China), Nanjing Agricultural University (NAU- China), Nanjing New Oriental (NJXDF-CHN) and 6 teams from Worldshaper-Nanjing and Worldshaper-NJBIOX. The teams had a friendly exchange and sharing on a number of topics such as project creation and social practice progress.

Before the official launch of the event, NNU-China 2022 prepared posters, activity brochures and souvenirs, as well as planned the three parts of the event: lectures on educational methods and techniques, success presentations and exchange discussions.

At the beginning of the event, NNU-China 2022 invited Shen Xiaohai from the School of Food and Pharmaceutical Engineering of Nanjing Normal University to conduct an online sharing session, analyzing and explaining the content of the subsequent social practice, the target-oriented and the collection of effective content, which benefited all the team representatives after listening.

Afterwards, NNU-China 2022 Vice Captain Haoxuan Wang, representing the team, introduced the background and content of the project. She mentioned that the team had used eggs as a platform to build a new DHA/EPA delivery pathway in order to contribute to the promotion of human health and food safety in the world. In terms of Education, Haoxuan Wang reported on the nearly ten activities carried out by NNU-China 2022 targeting three major groups of people: children, secondary school students and the general public, including the production of picture books and brochures, community outreach and open lab days, which were well received.

After each team's presentation, members of the teams discussed in depth the progress of the projects of other teams of greater interest, with a view to having more in-depth exchanges on various aspects. All teams had their own strengths and ideas, and all said that they had learned a lot through this exchange and that the event was a great success.

NNU-China 2022 was able to refine the work experience of other teams and find new solutions, and through continuous discussion and experimentation, the project will be improved step bystep.

Fig23: Event poster & souvenir

Fig24: Representatives of each team attend the meeting

Fig25: Team members take a group photo

Through iGEMer's wechat communication group in China, we learned about the similarities between the USTC-Soft team's project and our own, and we got in touch with them to communicate. Through in-depth communication with USTC-Soft, we learned that the core of their project is to build a software for predicting enzymes of unknown reactions, while our core is to transfer the metabolic pathway of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids into Yarrowia lipolytica, in order to obtain our target products EPA and DHA. There are several important core reactions that require enzymes to catalyze. The platform built by the USTC-Soft team is a website for screening and predicting enzymes required for single-step reactions. So we realized that we could collaborate on enzyme screening.

After the USTC-Soft team finished building their website, we chose to test their tool in the formation of linoleic acid from oleic acid. We compared the selected results with the actual enzymes used, and found that many target enzymes from different sources were given in the screening results, and their catalytic efficiency was compared. This also includes the ∆-12 desaturase from Fusarium moniliforme that we actually use. We believe that this tool can greatly improve the efficiency of our enzyme screening and has strong practicality. In addition, we suggest how to upgrade their project only in cases where the substrate and product differ by one group. We sincerely thank them for the testing opportunity.

Fig26: Test procedure