USTC/Repressor Evolution on Plates
From 2007.igem.org
We have been attempting to construct several artificial activator-operator pairs to serve as the connecting wires of our system, based on the knowledge of lacR and its binding site, and by means of protein design .
The figure below on the left shows the structure of the lacR-DNA complex, and the one on the right is the recognition region of which the amino acid residues we will try to modify. We attempt to minimize the binding energy of DNA and protein between the recognition region and the target operator to find the optimal composition and arrangement of the amino acid residues of the recognition regions.
By means of bioinformatics we can select a DNA sequence that has never appeared in the genome of E.Coli, and let the regulator bind to the sequence with quite high specificity,. Therefore, we will not have to worry about the regulator’s interrupting the normal functioning of the host genome.
With this computational method in silicon, we are able to screen thousands of proteins in a faster and cheaper way, compared with the traditional wet experimental methods.
