Current Problems

The unpleasant odor of farting leads to social embarrassment.

Patients who undergo enterostomy are confronting social distancing because of the acrid smell released from the stoma on their bellies.

Our Contributions

To solve the problems above, we genetically engineered probiotic Escherichia coli to decrease the production of main molecules that contribute to intestinal acrid smell (ammonia and hydrogen sulfide) and produce an aroma substance (myrcene). We mutate argA into argAfbr and knockout argR to enhance the conversion of ammonia into arginine, create several mutants of cysE gene to promote the conversion of hydrogen sulfide into cysteine, and construct a three-plasmids-system to produce myrcene. The result shows we significantly improved e.coli's ammonia production and cysteine synthesis; myrcene was produced successfully in relatively low production.

For human practices, we did a series of activities (survey, expert visits, collaboration, exhibitions, lectures, etc) to improve our product design and promote the education of synthetics biology.

Promotion Video

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Project Design

Explore our experimental design for engineering probiotics to reduce the molecules that contribute to intestinal acrid smell and produce aroma substance.

Model

Explore how our mathematical model predicts the competitive relationship between the three different stains of probiotics we created.

Human Practices

Explore the series of social activities we conducted in the aim of improving our experimental design and promoting public education about synthetic biology.