Team:NPU-CHINA/Partnership
PARTNERSHIP
The Conference of China iGEMer Community (CCiC), as the largest iGEM academic conference in China, attracts more than 100 teams from all over the country and more than 2,000 iGEMers to participate each year. In the annual iGEM competition, CCiC provides Chinese iGEMers a platform to communicate thoroughly.
We found that our project is very similar to the GA_STATE_SW_JIAOTONG team's project in the online meetup. After the first online meeting, we confirmed cooperation in partnership, experiment, HP, education, etc. The mutual help and interactive feedback between our two teams have played a significant role in promoting our projects during the process.
The following are some details of our cooperation in this partnership:
Considering bio-safety and ethical issues, in the initial project design, both of us decided to use Bacillus subtilis as the chassis cell and apply a self-lysis system to control product release and bacterial reproduction to ensure safety
The NPU-CHINA team found in their research that the overexpression of Bacillus subtilis autolysin can be explored to lyse Bacillus subtilis.
In B. subtilis, some promoters only start transcription at the stable phase, such as PyqfD. In such a phase, promoters can be applied for the expression of specific products. By assembling the phase promoter of Bacillus subtilis and autolysin, a self-lysis system can be constructed.
The GA_State_SW_Jiaotong team proposed a bacterial toxin-antitoxin system that can regulate the growth of bacteria: the dual regulation system combining Lactose promotor and Tryptophan promotor with the sok-hok TA system. This controllable lysis system ensures that the live bacteria will not overproduce and pollute the environment during the application of the product.
1. The NPU-CHINA team purchased the Bacillus subtilis WB600 strain at the beginning of the project and shared the strain with GA_STATE_SW_JIAOTONG.
2. Since GA_STATE_SW_JIAOTONG team’s results in colony PCR and agarose gel electrophoresis experiments continued to be unsatisfactory. During online meetings, our team shared some tips on colony PCR and agarose gel electrophoresis, such as the appropriate water bath temperature for bacterial lysis and the appropriate amount of TAE buffer in running gel electrophoresis, and the ratio of sample to loading dye during sample spotting.
3. In addition, the instructor of the NPU-CHINA team provided some competent cell preparation and transformation methods for Pichia pastoris and Bacillus subtilis, and NPU shared these protocols with the GA_STATE_SW_JIAOTONG team.
1. Since the NPU-CHINA team did not participate in the 2019 and 2020 competitions, many team foundations need to be re-established and lack experience in iGEM competition. The GA_STATE_SW_JIAOTONG team provided expertise and guidance to the NPU-CHINA team in terms of Human Practice and education program design, which makes the NPU's project more diversified.
2. The GA_STATE_SW_JIAOTONG team took the lead in successfully transforming Bacillus subtilis using the chemical transformation method provided by NPU-CHINA, which proved the protocol's effectiveness and provided the NPU-CHINA team with experience in operating details. Subsequent Bacillus subtilis transformation experiments were carried out smoothly for NPU_China.
In the education section, the NPU-CHINA team, the GA_STATE_SW_JIAOTONG, and the NWU-CHINA-A team carried out a synthetic biology presentation for high school students in China through online channels (Tencent meeting). This presentation explained some recent advancements in biology and briefly introduced synthetic biology. At the same time, the three teams shared their projects and related scientific knowledge. A total of 30 high school students participated in this presentation. They have experience in high school biology competitions and plan to continue studying biology in the future. After listening to this presentation, they showed significant interest in biological research.
For GA_STATE_SW_JIAOTONG team’s public engagement in the United States, they visited Lambert High School in Suwanee, Georgia. They presented their project to them and briefly went over college life in Atlanta, Georgia, and Chandu, China. Lambert High School has been partaking in the iGEM competition for the last three years, so gaining their feedback and insight into their project was very beneficial for all of us. They shed some light on how hair loss affects individuals and how they were attempting to tackle it.
CONTACT NPU CHINA
NPU-CHINA is the iGEM team of Northwestern Polytechnical University
Address: 127 West Youyi Road Beilin District, Xi'an,
Shaanxi 710072, China
Contact: npuigem@outlook.com
bilibili: NPU-iGEM
