Plants can acquire unique features that can promote a more sustainable future. In our projects, for example, plants are modified to mass-produce edible anthocyanin. However, it is harder to work with.
Other teams working with phototrophs recognized the challenge as well, and together we issued several tools to aid future iGEMers to overcome the challenge we faced.
As for our team, we successfully engineered anthocyanin using agrobacterium transformation. We made a video protocol explaining how we have done so.
Here are our video troubleshooting future iGEM teams working with agrobacterium:
You can also view our contribution through the handbook!
Anthocyanins are highly instable and very susceptible to degrade under high temperature, high humid and light. Besides, the every-day anthocyanin quantity of body intake should strictly follow the relevant recommendations. To help consumers to use anthocyanin products in a more manageable way, we designed a protective phytochemical quantifier. Our device was mainly composed of the following parts:
(1) Tank: The tank was divided into three functional areas. a) Outermost layer, to insulate the heat. b) container, to storage anthocyanins. c)Silicone desiccant, to maintain the low humidity inside the container.
(2) Controling temperature and humidity: With the aid of a temperature and humidity sensor and a cooling plate, it was able to monitor temperature and humidity inside the tank.
(3) Pouring out the powder: A stepper motor was used to rotate the screw so that the powder can be rotated out bit by bit with a PID algorithm applied to control the speed.
(4) Quantifying: The measuring structure was divided into upper and lower layers, which is similar to a coffee machine with a gravity sensor under the structure.
Click here to view more detail of our hardware
We want to publicize plant biology and plant synthetic biology to the general public, so we designed a free "Plant Biology for All" Course on Udemy, packed with dense quizzes and Coursework. This course is for anyone interested in plants.
This course consisted of five chapters:
1. Introduction to plants
2. Recognizing common plants in life
3. Plant physiology
4. Plant cells' ultrastructure
5. Plant gene synthesis methods.
Let's explore Kindom Plantae together!
View our full educational activities
Many anthocyanins are issued through the two anthocyanin regulators from Scutellaria baicalensis. All these stains can be used for future iGEM teams. At the level of parts, all information to engineer these anthocyanin-producing strains is presented on our Parts and register page