Shruti Sridhar, Gourav Saha, Pranav Ballaney, Yogen Borkar, Ameya Thete, Saransh Gokhale, Sharanya Shastri, Arya Agarwal, Naman Choudhary, Suhas Badadal, Ithihas Madala, Shrilaxmi Patil, Sumit Biswas, Malabika Biswas
Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani - K. K. Birla Goa Campus, India
Abstract
Sugarcane faces the issue of post-harvest sucrose deterioration. This loss is caused by the activity of an enzyme called invertase. Post harvest, invertase cleaves sucrose which reduces sugar retrieval rates by up to 10.25%. We wanted to devise a solution that initiated grassroots-level changes for farmers. The farmer would administer our novel polymer-based inoculant, which would release our bacteria into the stem of the sugarcane, by employing an injector mechanism. Once inside, our genetic circuit inside the bacterial E.coli chassis is designed to exhibit anti-invertase activity, regulated by the amount of fructose inside the sugarcane in a continuous and controlled manner, through a biosensor mechanism. We propose to use a modified type II ccdA-ccdB toxin-antitoxin system as our kill switch that is activated upon exposure to atmospheric concentrations of oxygen. We have also kept in mind the significance of biosafety and designed a robust three-tier failsafe mechanism.