Team:Shanghai Metro/Partnership

Shanghai_Metro

Partnership
Background of Partnership
PecTeast (Xiamen_city) is also a 2021 iGEM high school team. They focuses on applying CRISPR-Cas 9 to create a novel wine yeast, which is functional in both degrading pectin and fermenting. Currently, in fruit wine and juice production, pectase is added to degrade pectin to enhance juice transparency and even the overall production efficiency. Petcase usually costs 100-250 RMB/kg and it is estimated that it costs 100-1000 RMB to produce 1 ton of fruits. Thereafter, if team PecTeast’s experiments succeed, the widely-application of their yeast will lower the production costs of fruit wines and juice. It also means that the commercial values of their yeast is tremendous, thus team PecTeast came to us to discuss in-depth cooperation.
Overview of VI Patent Project (Strain Patent Protection Principles)
Originally-designed plasmids are transformed to E. Coli (DH5a) to realize patent protection;
Options of originally-designed plasmids could be Pus232-ike2-tke2 or Pus232-ike4-tke4;
Pus232 is extracted from E.Coli; gene ike and tke are extracted from Pseudomonas putida;
Gene tke secretes toxin while gene ike produces protein immune to that toxin;
The promoter of gene ike is inducible, indicating that only with the induction of a specific ligand, will gene ike be expressed ;
The promoter of gene tke is constitutive, indicating that its toxic protein expresses at any time.
How to Protect Team PecTeast (Xiamen_city)’s Yeast through Partnership?
Extract gene ike2-tke2 or ike4-tke4 from originally-designed plasmids;
Amplify the extracted genes by PCR;
Produce homologous recombination template by CRISPR, and then integrate the extracted genes to the genome of team PecTeast’s yeast ; (Since the effector of gene tke and immune factor of gene ike are commonly used, it is unnecessary to re-design them)
After the gene editing, put the yeast in a certain ligand to realize patent protection.
Mutual Benefits for VI Patent and PecTeast
Useful patent protection tools acquired by team PecTeast and further value may be added to their yeast in commercialization;
Commercialization opportunities for team VI Patent, if the partnership succeeds between PecTeast and VI Patent, this model could be proliferated fast to other iGEM teams, enhancing the impact of team VI patent;
Demonstration of iGEM spirit-creating a mutually-beneficial, open, and collaborated platform for synthetic biology and related projects.