Team:DTU-Denmark/Contribution
How to work with Aspergillus niger?
When we started our project, we were surprised by how different working with Aspergillus niger was going to be, as it is quite a change in workflow compared to other conventional organisms such as Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. However, through the help of the many fungal experts at DTU, we were able to get into the lab and do our experiments, even though it required many hours of instructions.
Consequently, we deemed it important for our project that we could deliver a product which will enable more people to work with filamentous fungi in the lab. We therefore created a flowchart and included our protocols.This flowchart is called "How to work with A. niger?" and is meant as a guide for the whole process of working with A. niger in the lab, from cloning in E. coli to you having your new A. niger strain ready for testing.
The purpose of this flowchart is to enable everyone to pick up filamentous fungi as their working organism and decrease the need of going through endless materials and methods sections.
Click on our flowchart on the right to get to our protocols!
Consequently, we deemed it important for our project that we could deliver a product which will enable more people to work with filamentous fungi in the lab. We therefore created a flowchart and included our protocols.This flowchart is called "How to work with A. niger?" and is meant as a guide for the whole process of working with A. niger in the lab, from cloning in E. coli to you having your new A. niger strain ready for testing.
The purpose of this flowchart is to enable everyone to pick up filamentous fungi as their working organism and decrease the need of going through endless materials and methods sections.
Click on our flowchart on the right to get to our protocols!
Contributing with more knowledge to iGEM and the rapidly growing fungal community
Filamentous fungi as a production organism are highly underrepresented in iGEM even though production of commercial enzymes by filamentous fungi in the food industry accounts for 82% of the enzymes used (Arnau, Yaver and Hjort, 2020). We have contributed to the iGEM community by adding parts and by making and improving tools for filamentous fungi. These efforts will without a doubt make filamentous fungi a more attractive production host and easier to engineer. Furthermore, we believe that our work can be used by a broader range of people including everyone in the fungal community. We also hope that our project can boost interest in fungal genetic engineering in a new generation of synthetic biologists.
References
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Arnau, J., Yaver, D. and Hjort, C., 2020. Strategies and Challenges for the Development of Industrial Enzymes Using Fungal Cell Factories. Grand Challenges in Fungal Biotechnology, pp.179-210.