Team:Chiba

E.coli Time Manager Since 2008

Welcome to the Chiba team Wiki for iGEM 2009!

Team Photo

I’ll introduce Team Chiba to you. Team Chiba joined iGEM in 2006. Its members belong to The Dep. of Chemistry and so we did not know much biology. The members therefore had to start from studying the basics of biology. This was the characteristic, but what I believe to be the biggest weak point for the Team.

This year, However, Team Chiba has a member who belongs to the Dep. of biology! He is nothing but an undergraduate student but I expect that the energy of our team will be made better by his existence.

This years project is making the most of last year's project. Last year, we tried to devise a series of delay-switches by designing a "switching consortia". We got limited, in success in generating delay swithces, but I think that there is a great deal of room for improvement.

The Registration of our team is very late, in June, and our team has only 5 people. I don't know what will become of our team, but I think the best for our team that all members our team enjoy to the full! Thank you. (Asia iGEM Workshop)

Project - E. coli Time Manager Since 2008

We are constructing delay switches to control/preset the timing of target gene expression.

Our project uses two classes of bacteria: senders and receivers. Senders produce signaling molecules, and receivers are activated only after a particular concentration of this molecule is reached. The combinatorial use of senders/receivers allows us to make a‘switching consortium’which activates different genes at the preset times.

私たちが2008年から取り組んでいるのは、細菌同士の化学通信機構を利用した「集団で発揮する」タイマー機能です。具体的なシステムは「送信機細胞」がつくるシグナル分子を「受信機細胞」が感知することで色変化を起こすというものです。シグナル分子がじわじわと増えてゆき、遂に受信細胞が感じる濃度に達した時に色変化が起きます。この蓄積にかかる時間がタイマー時間となるわけです。 私たちは、細胞膜を自由に通過できる分子（アシル化ホモセリンラクトン群）をシグナル分子として用いることで系内の何万もの細胞に「感じている時間」を共有させることができるよう工夫をしました。これによって、細胞達はばらばらに「ずれて」光り始めるのではなく、集団として一糸乱れず同時にアクションを起こすことができます。この「時間合わせ」機能を内蔵する新しいタイマー細胞を用いて、数段階に機能するタイマーを作るのが今年の目的です。

Access Counter