Team:XJTU-China/Description
Project Description
See our promotion video
We must admit that a nice mental state plays an essential role in maintaining our overall
health.
With the rapid changing in nowadays society, we can easily noticed that the number of people
having
problems about their mental health, like depression,anxiety and insomnia, is in an
increasing
trend.1 And according to several researches, mental health
problems closely related to many
physical disease, like high blood pressure and metabolic disease.2,3 What’s worse, this trend is
developing tremendously during the pandemic prevailing of COVID-19.
COVID-19, occurred at the end of 2019, not only made profound influence on the economy of
society,
structure of industry and people’s lifestyle, but also posed a great threat to human health.
Apart
from directly causing damage to human body,like pneumonia and multiple organs injury,
coronavirus
also poses great pressure to individual’s mental health, which is hard to neglect.4 According to
the surveys carried out in US, China and Europe, during the pandemic time, the ratio of
people
suffering from depression, anxiety and insomnia of different degrees is a climbing
trend.5,6
As a result, in this year’s iGEM competition, XJTU-China decides to use the technology of
synthetic
biology to bring changes to people who suffer from mental health problems like depression,
anxiety
and insomnia, in order to improve their life quality. Due to the regulation of quarantine
and
reduction in going out, dealing with those mental health problems by making differences to
people’s
diets can be more convenient and ensure their safety. Tryptophan, as an essential amino
acids
for
human, also shows excellent potential in reducing depression and anxiety and promoting sleep
quality.7,8,9,10 After having sufficient investigation and
profound discussion with experts in nutriology,
we decide to create a healthy type of milk based on tryptophan
McKee, Grace B.Perrin, Paul B. Alzueta, Elisabet.Caffarra,
Sendy.
Ramos-Usuga, Daniela.Carlos Arango-Lasprilla, Juan.Baker, Fiona C. TI Sleeping when
the
world
locks down: Correlates of sleep health during the COVID-19 pandemic across 59
countriesSO SLEEP
HEALTH RI ; Perrin, Paul/L-5373-2015
See our hardware
We aimed at developing a domestic tryptophan milk producer using knowledge and technology of
synthetic biology. Synthetic biology enables us to make functional change to given mode
bacteria
and fulfill our goal. Equipped with those skills and knowledge, we choose E.coliDH5α to accept our
designed plasmid, which gives it the ability to produce Tryptophan efficiently and
controllable.
The core design of our produce circuit is the use of Toogle Switch, which is divided into
two
branches: growing pass and producing pass. And E.coli, responding to the
concentration of
IPTG and
the change of temperature, is able to manipulate the ratio of energy and substance input to
these
two branches, then automatically change between these two statuses. The growing pass is
constructed
with the key gene: pykA ,to maintain the regular growth of E.coli. And the
producing circuit
contains three main genes: aroG, trpA and trpB. In this part,
aroG
is essential for the
distribution of energy and substance between growth and produce process. And considering the
metabolic pressure for E.coli itself, we finally choose to link two main genes in the
produce
process of Tryptophan.11
On top of that, we design the hardware to help us achieve the goal of domestic produce and
use
of
Tryptophan. The design of our hardware can be divided into four key parts: temperature
control
module, Single Chip Microcomputer, detecting module and magnetic stirring module. We are
trying
to centralize all of these modules in a machine as small as possible, which gives our device
the
advantage of being portable and convenient.
IGEM competition is absolutely not the culmination of our exploration! During the precious
journey
in iGEM, we have endeavored to arouse public’s attention to their own mental health
situation
and
aid people release their pain of depression, anxiety and insomnia. And after the
competition, we
will want to practice some innovative ideas we came up with at brain-storm stage, like how
to
polish and improve our hardware design to make it be widely accepted? How to use commercial
strategies to advertise it. We really want our design to come down to earth with the purpose
of
releasing pain of people suffering from depression and bringing real convenience to public’s
daily
life , anxiety and insomnia during this special. Fortunately, we are on our way to achieve
that
goal.
References
1 Merikangas, K. R. et al. Lifetime Prevalence of Mental Disorders in U.S.
Adolescents: Results
from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication–Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A). Journal
of
the
American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 49 (2010).
2 Depner, C. M., Stothard, E. R. & Wright, K. P. Metabolic Consequences of Sleep and
Circadian
Disorders. Current Diabetes Reports 14 (2014).
3 ALFANO, C. A., GINSBURG, G. S. & KINGERY, J. N. Sleep-Related Problems Among Children
and
Adolescents With Anxiety Disorders. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent
Psychiatry 46 (2007).
4 Robert, S. et al. Depression, Anxiety and Stress during COVID-19: Associations
with Changes in
Physical Activity, Sleep, Tobacco and Alcohol Use in Australian Adults. International
journal
of environmental research and public health 17 (2020).
5 D.S., K. W., A., C. S., C., T. E., A., L. D. & S., D. N. Loneliness during the first
half-year
of COVID-19 Lockdowns. Psychiatry Research 294 (2020)
6 Killgore, W. D. S., Cloonan, S. A., Taylor, E. C. & Dailey, N. S. Loneliness: A
signature
mental health concern in the era of COVID-19. Psychiatry Research 290
(2020).
7 Dalfsen, J. H. v. & Markus, C. R. The serotonin transporter gene-linked polymorphic
region
(5-HTTLPR) and the sleep-promoting effects of tryptophan: A randomized placebo-controlled
crossover study. Journal of Psychopharmacology 33 (2019).
8 Hudson, Hudson, Hecht & MacKenzie. Protein source tryptophan versus pharmaceutical
grade
tryptophan as an efficacious treatment for chronic insomnia. Nutritional Neuroscience
8
(2005).
9 R, L. H., Sanjiv, A. & L, F. V. Tryptophan Intake in the US Adult Population Is Not
Related to
Liver or Kidney Function but Is Associated with Depression and Sleep Outcomes. The
Journal of
nutrition 146 (2016).
10 Schneider-Helmert, D. & Spinweber, C. L. Evaluation of l -tryptophan for treatment
of
insomnia:
A review. Psychopharmacology 89 (1986).
11 HAO Dali et al. Site-mutation of AroG Gene and Co-expression with TrpBA Gene
in
Escherichia coli. Chinese Journal of Applied and Environmental Biology 19,
817-821 (2013).