Difference between revisions of "Team:Virginia/Attributions"

Julia Ball: As our team captain, member of the Human Practices and Wetlab Committees, Julia helped organize our team, communicated with other iGEM teams, advisors, and experts through almost 100 emails, helped fill out safety forms, organized the recruitment for next year’s team, and was the primary point of contact with the iGEM organization overall. Also, Julia wrote the code of ethical conduct, worked on the blog for the iGEM engineering school website, and helped develop the resource hub. As part of the DNA subteam of the Wetlab committee, Julia helped design the DNA scaffold procedures and worked in the lab.

Veronica Gutierrez: As a member of the Wetlab, Wiki, and Entrepreneurship committees, Veronica helped research and write procedures regarding the construction of the BMC, aided in the overall structure and organization of the wiki and helped collect details on current or pending patents. In the lab, Veronica worked with Colin Haws to go through the different procedures pertaining to BMC formation and analyze the results.

Colin Haws: As our team captain, member of the Human Practices and Wetlab Committees, Julia helped organize our team, communicated with other iGEM teams, advisors, and experts through almost 100 emails, helped fill out safety forms, organized the recruitment for next year’s team, and was the primary point of contact with the iGEM organization overall. Also, Julia wrote the code of ethical conduct, worked on the blog for the iGEM engineering school website, and helped develop the resource hub. As part of the DNA subteam of the Wetlab committee, Julia helped design the DNA scaffold procedures and worked in the lab.

Julia Ball: As our team captain, member of the Human Practices and Wetlab Committees, Julia helped organize our team, communicated with other iGEM teams, advisors, and experts through almost 100 emails, helped fill out safety forms, organized the recruitment for next year’s team, and was the primary point of contact with the iGEM organization overall. Also, Julia wrote the code of ethical conduct, worked on the blog for the iGEM engineering school website, and helped develop the resource hub. As part of the DNA subteam of the Wetlab committee, Julia helped design the DNA scaffold procedures and worked in the lab.

The invention consists of a protein shell comprising one or more proteins, one or more nucleic acid scaffolds of which there can be multiple copies, anabolic and/or catabolic enzymes specific to the desired biosynthesis pathway each containing a nucleic acid binding domain, recognition sequences for the utilized nucleic acid binding domains, nucleic acid spacers, and a linkage between the nucleic acid scaffolds and the protein shell. The protein shell (10) can take the form of any closed or open surface that comprises one or more repeating protein units (12). Examples of valid shells include bacterial microcompartments such as the Pdu, Eut, and carboxysome microcompartments, as well as modified, but not necessarily closed, surfaces composed of mutated versions of these microcompartment shell proteins. The nucleic acid scaffolds (18) comprise multiple recognition sequences (22) and spacers (32) and can be made from any form of nucleic acid, including: deoxyribonucleic acid, ribonucleic acid, and synthetic nucleic acids such as xeno nucleic acids and peptide nucleic acids among others. These scaffolds are attached to the protein shell. The pathway enzymes are biological proteins whose exact sequences are dependent on the given use case of the invention, but which all contain a nucleic acid binding domain either internal to their structure, or at their N or C terminus.

Additionally, protein linkers are usually present between this nucleic acid binding domain and the enzyme structure to prevent inhibition of enzyme activity. However the exact linker(s) used, if any, is(are) also dependent on the specific use case of the invention. These pathway enzymes are attached to the nucleic acid scaffolds via their nucleic acid binding domains. The nucleic acid recognition sequences (22) are unique or semi-unique sequences of nucleic acid monomers on the nucleic acid scaffolds to which the utilized nucleic acid binding domains have some degree of molecular complementarity. These nucleic recognition sequences comprise most of the scaffold and mark the locations to which the DNA binding domains of the pathway enzymes attach to the scaffolds. The nucleic acid spacers (32) are relatively short sequences of nucleic acid monomers that are also present on the nucleic acid scaffolds, between the recognition sequences. The linkage between the nucleic acid scaffolds (18) and protein shell (10) provides a means by which the nucleic acid scaffolds are bound to the protein shell through direct or multi-molecule complementarity. This linkage is found between the nucleic acid scaffolds and the protein shell. One example is through the addition of a nucleic acid binding domain (24) to one or more of the shell proteins forming a nucleic acid binding domain, shell protein fusion (14). Like the pathway enzymes, this nucleic acid binding-domain can be either internal to the shell protein structure or at its N or C terminus, where the exact placement depends on the shell protein being utilized. Alternatively, one or more intermediate proteins can be used to adhere the nucleic acid scaffolds to the shell, where the region of the protein interacting with the shell binds the shell via protein-protein complementarity (28) with a given shell protein, and the region of the protein interacting with the nucleic acid scaffold binds another recognition sequence on the nucleic acid scaffold through another nucleic acid binding domain (30). This forms a shell protein binding, nucleic acid domain fusion (26).