The Maple Industry in New York State
The maple syrup industry is an integral agricultural enterprise in the United States and Canada. Despite its cultural and economic significance, the industry remains severely understudied by the scientific community. In recent years, climate change has gravely impacted syrup production in particular, as sap collection is an inherently climate-dependent process. In New York State, frequent warm spells and increased average temperatures have shifted the sap collection window and made syrup production more unpredictable and burdensome for sugarmakers. [1] These uncertainties coupled with the lack of scientific advancements in the industry exacerbate common syrup production problems including buddy and ropy syrup.
The Buddy Problem
The Problem
Buddy syrup is named after its emergence which coincides with the “bud-break” period in maple trees. As buds begin to swell, certain molecules including sarcosine, asparagine, and choline are upregulated in maple sap. These chemical compounds build up and peak before leaf emergence, resulting in buddy sap [3]. Syrup produced from buddy sap tastes malty, peppery, and cabbage-like. Unfortunately, there is no current method that allows maple farmers to detect buddy sap until it has been processed all the way into syrup. Subsequently, this leaves maple syrup producers with vast amounts of unsellable products.
The Solution
Team Saptasense has developed a set of novel biosensors designed to detect sarcosine, choline, and asparagine levels within the sap itself to prevent energy, time, resources, and financial waste for local sugarmakers.
The Ropy Problem
The Problem
Ropiness of maple syrup is a phenomenon that can occur several times during the season due to bacterial fermentation and contamination within the syrup [4]. The most common off-flavor-causing bacteria is Aerobacter aerogenes which produces exopolysaccharides like dextrans, arabinogalactans, and rhamnogalacturonan within the syrup, and causes it to take a ropy texture [4]. Subsequently, this syrup is an inedible and unsellable product that must be discarded.
The Solution
Team Saptasense has designed creative ways to repurpose ropy syrup by extracting the valuable polysaccharide byproduct dextran. Dextran is widely used within the medical field to treat hemorrhages and burns, as well as to aid with drug delivery, and radiological imaging [5]. In the maple industry, ropy syrup waste can be isolated and purified to produce crosslinked hydrogels for enhanced maple seed germination and other monetary profits. As a result, remaple farmers are able to reduce food waste, decrease revenue loss, and create useful dextran-based products.
The Invert Sugar Problem
Figure: 4.2
The Problem
During our initial integrated human practices initiatives, we uncovered a problem that had gone unaddressed in literature: measuring invert sugar levels for the production of ancillary maple products such as candies and creams. Ancillary maple products require an accurate measure of the concentration of the monosaccharides glucose and fructose, collectively known as ‘invert sugars’ [6]. Invert sugar levels affect the sweetness, solubility, and crystallization of confectionary products, so sugarmakers must have a reliable way to measure concentrations of invert sugar [6]. Traditionally, maple producers use a commercial glucometer designed to measure blood sugar levels in diabetic patients, but the range of glucose in syrup is much higher than commercial glucometers can test. The standard practice for measuring invert sugars therefore requires a ten fold dilution of the syrup. This process is challenging for many sugarmakers, as they often lack the proper equipment to accurately measure small volumes of syrup and water.
The Solution
Team Saptasense has developed a novel glucometer – that is able to measure high concentrations of invert sugar levels, thereby eliminating the need for the inaccurate dilution step. Our device will reduce the food waste and lost profits that result from ruined ancillary maple products caused by inaccurate invert sugar measurement.
Summary
Team Saptasense has created an expansive set of biological tools designed to mitigate food waste and profit loss in the maple syrup industry in three ways. First, we have developed a kit of novel biosensors to detect the buddy defect in sap prior to its energetically burdensome processing into maple syrup. These sensors will allow farmers to minimize fossil fuel usage that would otherwise be wasted in producing unsellable buddy syrup. Second, we have developed methods for repurposing ropy syrup into dextran hydrogels, thereby allowing sugarmakers to repurpose waste products into a valuable source of revenue. Third, we have built and tested a device capable of measuring invert sugar levels in pure maple syrup, eliminating a dilution step that often contributes to unsellable batches of maple candies and creams. Altogether, Saptasense has developed an accessible and customer-focused solution to reduce fuel, food, and revenue loss for sugarmakers across the world.
References
- National Agricultural Statistics Service. Crop Production. USDA, 10 June 2022, www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/reports/crop0622.pdf.
- Hall, Anthony F., “Banner Year for Northeast Maple Syrup Makers.” New York Almanack, 24 June 2022, www.newyorkalmanack.com/2022/06/banner-year-for-northeast-maple-syrup-makers/.
- Garcia, E. Jose, et al. “Metabolomics Reveals Chemical Changes in Acer Saccharum SAP over a Maple Syrup Production Season.” PLOS ONE, vol. 15, no. 8, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235787.
- Lagacé, Luc, et al. "Chemical and microbial characterization of ropy maple sap and syrup." Maple Syrup Dig (2018): 9-19.
- Miao, K.H.; Guthmiller, K.B. “Dextran”. National Library of Medicine via StatPearls, 2022. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557631/
- Hill, Ansley. “What Is Invert Sugar? Know the Facts.” Healthline, 2021.
Why and how did we choose to solve this problem? (Brainstorming Phase)
Starting in February, our team began looking at past iGEM projects and through scientific papers for inspiration for our project. We had two checkpoints in this process, the top 10 project ideas and the top 3 project ideas. At these points we presented our ideas to our advisors for feedback and made choices about what projects were most feasible for our team. In addition to these checkpoints, the University of Rochester 2021 iGEM team recommended that we narrow down our top 10 project ideas to our top 5 project ideas before the top 3 presentations. Our top ideas and our selection process is detailed below.
Our top 10 ideas (February- early March)
Frostbite Prevention
Serious forms of frostbite can lead to permanent damage to the body, even to the point of requiring an amputation. This project was about creating a gel or a spray (like sunscreen) that could be applied to human skin to prevent frostbite.
Pain Sensor
Pain can be very difficult to categorize, and some people may have difficulty expressing that they are in pain to a doctor or other people. We wanted to create a sensor to detect markers of stress and pain to create a quantitative measure of pain.
Real Time Food Poisoning Detection
Food poisoning is a worldwide issue. However, many of the tests to detect food poisoning agents take hours to process, meaning that they aren’t very practical for preventing food poisoning. We hoped to create a rapid test for a common food poisoning agent.
Microbial Fuel Cells
Renewable energy sources will be very important in the future, and microbial fuel cells show some promising potential for being renewable and compact sources of energy. We hoped to improve upon the efficiency of previously designed microbial fuel cells with the hope of using them as batteries for internally implanted medical devices.
Lake Ontario Water Quality
Nearby Lake Ontario is filled with many different types of pollutants. Since many iGEM teams have focused on removing phosphorus or nitrogen from water, we wanted to try to eliminate a different pollutant from the water. We focused on the pollutant dieldrin which is toxic to humans.
Bacteria that Consumes CO
Carbon monoxide is a deadly gas that can be emitted by different industrial processes. We planned to use bacteria to capture this released carbon monoxide and convert it into a less dangerous compound.
Detecting “Off-flavor” in Maple Syrup
In the spring when maple trees begin to bud, the sap produced by those trees contains chemicals that will cause an off flavor when boiled down into maple syrup. This syrup cannot be sold with this defect, so we aimed to detect buddyness in the sap before the effort was put in to turn the sap into syrup.
Detecting Proteins at Low Concentrations
Detecting proteins when their concentrations are low is very difficult, but has lots of potential applications in the real world, such as early disease detection. We wanted to find a way to detect proteins at low concentrations and amplify the signal.
Gut-Biome Mental Health Diagnosis
Mental illness affects many people, but is not always easy to diagnose. Since studies have begun to publish about the link between gut microbiome and the presence of mental illnesses, we planned to create a mental health diagnostic tool using information from the gut.
Traumatic Brain Injury Rapid Detection
Traumatic brain injuries are hard to detect, but can be lethal if left untreated. Our goal was to create a rapid preliminary test to detect markers of a traumatic brain injury.
Our top 5 (March-early April)
Frostbite Prevention
The team continued to be interested in this idea and we continued to investigate specific proteins and chemicals that could be used to prevent frostbite.
Real Time Food Poisoning Detection
Our original target of detection turned out to be a safety concern, so we continued to research other detection targets such as whole bacterial cells.
Detecting “Off-flavor” in Maple Syrup
We continued researching what compounds cause the buddy flavor in maple syrup. In our research we also determined that there was another maple syrup defect (ropy syrup) that we could focus on for another module in our project.
Gut-Biome Mental Health Diagnosis
We continued to investigate possible targets (such as various tryptophan metabolites) in the gut microbiome for our diagnostic test.
Traumatic Brain Injury Rapid Detection
In our research we found that there were both RNA (such as S100B, GFAP, UCH-L1, or MMP-9) and protein markers for traumatic brain injuries, so we began researching whether RNA or protein markers would provide better detection results.
Eliminated
Pain Sensor
We ended up eliminating our pain sensor idea because we felt that it would be difficult to prevent people from misusing our device.
Microbial Fuel Cells
While it was an interesting idea, we eliminated the microbial fuel cell idea because we felt it would be difficult to convince others that putting genetically engineered bacteria directly into the human body (such as in medically implanted devices) was the best solution to this problem.
Lake Ontario Water Quality
Since our water quality idea focused on removing the toxic substance dieldrin from Lake Ontario, we realized that due to safety concerns, we would be unable to run the experiments necessary for this project to work.
Bacteria that Consumes CO
Upon further brainstorming, we realized that capturing carbon monoxide gas out of the air would be difficult. Additionally, we would not have been able to work with carbon monoxide due to safety concerns.
Detecting Proteins at Low Concentrations
Upon further looking into the issue, along with advice from our advisors, we realized that this idea was not enough to create a full project out of. We ultimately decided to combine it into our food poisoning detection module where we would be attempting to detect food poisoning agents at small quantities.
Our top 3 (early April)
Real Time Food Poisoning Detection
In our research, we generated many different possible detection targets (such as external cellular structures of various bacteria) and methods (manipulating quorum sensing, fluorescence, or microfluidics). We began to streamline these ideas into one project.
Detecting “Off-flavor” in Maple Syrup
The combination of two different defects in maple syrup made this project very interesting, and we continued to do research about how we would detect buddy sap and reuse ropy syrup.
Traumatic Brain Injury Rapid Detection
We continued to research what targets (such as miR-27b-3p, miR-142-3p, miR-107, and miR-135b-5p) would be the best for detecting traumatic brain injuries.
Eliminated
Gut-Biome Mental Health Diagnosis
Compared with our other top 5 ideas, we decided that this project idea was very broad and not as strong as the rest of our ideas.
Frostbite Prevention
We liked this idea, but we realized that testing to see if our product actually worked was going to be very difficult.
Our final choice (early April)
Detecting “Off-flavor” in Maple Syrup
We really liked this idea because it was unique with multiple issues to focus on, allowing us multiple ways to succeed and solve the problem at hand. We also liked that we could feasibly test our solution on affected sap and syrup due to the locality of maple farms near our university.
Eliminated
Real Time Food Poisoning Detection
Despite our efforts, this project idea was not as well defined as the other project ideas in terms of what exactly our solution to the problem was.
Traumatic Brain Injury Rapid Detection
While we were still excited about this idea, we realized that it would be difficult to test our proposed solution.