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- The ability of cyanobacteria to perform oxygenic photosynthesis is thought to have converted the early reducing atmosphere into an oxidizing one, which dramatically changed the composition of life forms on Earth by provoking an explosion of biodiversity and leading to the near-extinction of oxygen-intolerant organisms. This characteristic inspired us to considering taking cyanobacteria as a way to consume greenhouse gas， namely carbon dioxide.
The Analysis Genetics and genetic engineering has confirmed that the carrier and promoter in E—Coli can also been used in cyanobacteria as well，especially the transgenetic single-cell. Ethanol, especially bio-ethanol is of great potential and can be a good way to relieve energy crisis and make contributions to sustainable development, which is the megatrend around the world. There is a pathway both in Saccharomyces Cerevisiae and Zymomonas.Mobilis:pyruvic acid------> carbon dioxide + acetaldehyde ------>ethanol The enzyme which catalysis the first reaction is pyruvic decarboxylase （PDC）and the other enzyme catalyzing the following step is alcohol dehydrogenase（ADH） In order to integrate this two enzyme into the genome of cyanobacteria so that it can carry on the ethanol producing pathway during the process of photosynthesis， we decided to construct a plasmid through which the ADH and PDC gene are able to express in cyanobacteria. And thus, cyanobacteria convertor --from carbon dioxide to ethanol is constructed.
- Another project is to engineer a Yeast Two-hybrid system aimed at Microcystins(MCs, induce liver cancer) detection in waters. The threat of MCs in seas, rivers, lakes and Reservoirs has become more and more severe worldwide due to eutrophication in pulltion waters. This MCs detection device takes the advatage of Gal4 promoter, which consists of two domains, one is AD(Activation domain), the other BD(Binding domain). When AD and BD are close enough to each other, the Report gene transcription LacZ willed trigued. We selected and modified two peptides that have specific interation with MCs, and engineered them into two vectors to construct a Yeast Two-hybrid system. In the presence of MCs at different concentrations, blue dots in different shades of colours could be seen with naked eyes.
