Team:KULeuven/Design/Vanillin Receptor

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The vanillin receptor senses the vanillin concentration outside the cell. This information is needed to create the feedback loop in order to control vanillin synthesis.

Certain virulent bacteria like Agrobacterium Tumefaciens contain a large tumor-inducing plasmid that carries different virulence (vir) genes. The vanillin receptor is composed of two of those vir genes: VirA and VirG . RpoA () is an alfa subunit polymerase that helps VirG work in E. coli. These three genes are constitutively transcribed under promoter . The terminator is and is chosen as RBS.

Together, VirA and VirG form a two component system that recognizes phenol derivatives like vanillin and other signals like low pH, certain aldose monosaccharides and limited phosphate. Under the influence of vanillin, VirA is autophosphorylated. The VirA dimers function as a sensor kinase. They process all the input signals and phosphorylate VirG. VirG then binds to a Vir box sequence located in the VirB promoter region and triggers the transcription of antikey .