Team:Calgary/Contribution



PART CHARACTERIZATION

Characterizing a Y. lipolytica promoter

Yarrowia lipolytica is a promising new chassis that has a variety of applications in the field of biotechnology. This chassis, however, has not been well established in the iGEM community. As such important molecular elements such as strong constitutive promoters have not been well identified in the iGEM registry for use in this chassis. The development of strong promoter elements is necessary to allow for synthetic biology applications in the chassis as heterologous protein expression often requires a strong constitutive promoter. In an effort to facilitate the use of this promising chassis in the iGEM community, we have characterized the Y. lipolytica native TEF1 promoter BBa_K2117000 using the information found in the literature. We have identified the basal expression level of the native promoter and methods for improving its expression.

Furthermore, we have created experimental plans to characterize the activity of this promoter based on growth phase. This experiment is uses a standard GFP reporter where expression and thereby promoter activity cane quantified by fluorescence. Particularly Oviita, the growth of Y. lipolytica needs to be monitored closely; therefore, if growth phase has an impact on promoter activity and protein expression levels this would be important information to inform our project.

Learn more on our characterization page.


PART COLLECTION

Creating meaningful parts for the iGEM community

For Y. lipolyticato be established further in the iGEM community, a greater breadth of molecular tools need to become available. Therefore, we developed and are contributing a Y. lipolytica part collectionto the iGEM registry. This collection includes a number of essential basic parts such as strong constitutive promoters, a terminator, a signal peptide, antibiotic resistance genes, reporter genes, and amino acid synthesis genes. Together these parts make Y. lipolytica a more usable chassis as these are essential molecular biology parts. Furthermore, we are introducing cellulase coding sequences that have been optimized for Y. lipolytica. By introducing the cellulase genes to the Y. lipolytica genome, this chassis will be less expensive and more sustainable to grow.

Aside from individual parts to assemble genetic constructs, we are also providing fully functional constructs with these coding sequences for high expression in Y. lipolytica. The constructs can be attached to each other as well, making larger gene cassettes using BBa_K3629012 or BBa_K3629028 as a destination vector. After assembly, the larger plasmid can be linearized using NotI and transformed into the Y. lipolytica genome.

Furthermore our expression constructs include multiple unique Gibson homology sequences for modular assembly, learn more on our part collection page.


BRANDING STYLE GUIDE

How do you create a brand for your project?

A branding style guide espouses the face, personality, and values of your project and defines its visual and voice identity. In other words, your branding style guide shapes how you present your project to the world, and how the world sees your project. Creating a branding style guide is an iterative process that begins with first understanding the values and personality of your project and of your target audiences. We understand that this can be a daunting task, so we used our own experience in creating the Oviita Brand to develop a comprehensive branding style guide template. This guide can be downloaded as a pdf below and provides a scaffold for future iGEM teams looking to finesse their brand. Enjoy!

Click here: Branding Style Guide How-to


EDUCATIONAL TOOLS

Promoting synthetic biology education and more

In order to provide a sustainable, community-based solution, we plan to genetically modify Rhodosporidium toruloides, an oleaginous yeast that naturally produces beta-carotene and lipids, to be more robust and resource-efficient. By modifying the yeast to produce cellulase, it can then use common agricultural waste products as an energy source for synthesizing its oil. It can then be eaten as a vitamin A supplement. The yeast strain, while naturally safe and non-pathogenic, will also be genetically modified to include a kill switch for bio-containment, and optimized for oil production.


COMPLEMENTARY AUXOTROPHY SYSTEM

Co-culture biocontainment system

In order to provide a sustainable, community-based solution, we plan to genetically modify Rhodosporidium toruloides, an oleaginous yeast that naturally produces beta-carotene and lipids, to be more robust and resource-efficient. By modifying the yeast to produce cellulase, it can then use common agricultural waste products as an energy source for synthesizing its oil. It can then be eaten as a vitamin A supplement. The yeast strain, while naturally safe and non-pathogenic, will also be genetically modified to include a kill switch for bio-containment, and optimized for oil production.


BELLATRIX

Creating a protein library

In order to provide a sustainable, community-based solution, we plan to genetically modify Rhodosporidium toruloides, an oleaginous yeast that naturally produces beta-carotene and lipids, to be more robust and resource-efficient. By modifying the yeast to produce cellulase, it can then use common agricultural waste products as an energy source for synthesizing its oil. It can then be eaten as a vitamin A supplement. The yeast strain, while naturally safe and non-pathogenic, will also be genetically modified to include a kill switch for bio-containment, and optimized for oil production.


GAUSHAUS

Andrew pls halp

In order to provide a sustainable, community-based solution, we plan to genetically modify Rhodosporidium toruloides, an oleaginous yeast that naturally produces beta-carotene and lipids, to be more robust and resource-efficient. By modifying the yeast to produce cellulase, it can then use common agricultural waste products as an energy source for synthesizing its oil. It can then be eaten as a vitamin A supplement. The yeast strain, while naturally safe and non-pathogenic, will also be genetically modified to include a kill switch for bio-containment, and optimized for oil production.


Protocols

Contributing yeast protocols

In order to provide a sustainable, community-based solution, we plan to genetically modify Rhodosporidium toruloides, an oleaginous yeast that naturally produces beta-carotene and lipids, to be more robust and resource-efficient. By modifying the yeast to produce cellulase, it can then use common agricultural waste products as an energy source for synthesizing its oil. It can then be eaten as a vitamin A supplement. The yeast strain, while naturally safe and non-pathogenic, will also be genetically modified to include a kill switch for bio-containment, and optimized for oil production.