Vanillin cell sensor

International audienceOur project for iGEM 2006 consisted of designing a cellular vanillin biosensor. We used an EnvZ-E. coli strain as a chassis, and constructed two different devices: a sensor and an actuator, assembled using OmpR-P as a standardised mediator. The sensor device contained a computationally designed vanillin receptor and a synthetic two-component signal transduction protein (Trz). The receptor protein was based on a ribose-binding protein as scaffold. The Trz was built by fusion of the periplasmic and transmembrane domains of a Trg protein with an EnvZ kinase domain. When the receptor complex binds Trg, an allosteric motion is propagated to the cytoplasmic EnvZ kinase domain, resulting in autophosphorylation and subsequent phosphate transfer to the OmpR transcription factor, which finally induces transcription of the ompC promoter. As actuator, we used a synthetic transcriptional circuit, which implements an OmpR-P band detector having GFP and RFP as an output. We designed this circuit using a synthetic promoter working as an AND gate, which is synergistically activated by cI and CRP. Our constructed Trg-EnvZ fusion and AND promoter will be very useful to future synthetic biology projects. © 2007 The Institution of Engineering and Technology

The Genome Sequence of Taurine Cattle:A Window to Ruminant Biology and Evolution

To understand the biology and evolution of ruminants, the cattle genome was sequenced to about sevenfold coverage. The cattle genome contains a minimum of 22,000 genes, with a core set of 14,345 orthologs shared among seven mammalian species of which 1217 are absent or undetected in noneutherian (marsupial or monotreme) genomes. Cattle-specific evolutionary breakpoint regions in chromosomes have a higher density of segmental duplications, enrichment of repetitive elements, and species-specific variations in genes associated with lactation and immune responsiveness. Genes involved in metabolism are generally highly conserved, although five metabolic genes are deleted or extensively diverged from their human orthologs. The cattle genome sequence thus provides a resource for understanding mammalian evolution and accelerating livestock genetic improvement for milk and meat production.Fil: Bovine Genome Sequencing and Analysis Consortium. Bovine Genome Sequencing And Analysis Consortium; Estados UnidosFil: Amadio, Ariel Fernando. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Santa Fe. Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Rafaela; ArgentinaFil: Poli, Mario Andres. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Genética; Argentin