1. Cyanobacteria Oscillator
E. Coli
Harvard iGEM 2006
Week 3
Peng, David, Jeff, Hetmann

2. Overall goal
We aim to create a kaiABC + reporter BioBrick which expresses a circadian rhythm in both E. coli and cyanobacteria.
(We are still brainstorming ideas of what to do; this week was review literature / grow strains / contact people)

3. Blue = biobricks cut site
Green = can be obtained from cyanobacteria
Prof. Susan Golden and others have this

4. We’ve obtained three strains of cyanobacteria:
From Eric Webb at Woods Hole: WH8102, a marine strain
We’re probably not going to use it because it’s reputed to be very difficult to grow and modify
From Peter Weigele at MIT: PCC7942 and PCC6803, both freshwater strains
PCC6803 can metabolize glucose
PCC7942 is the most common strain we’ve encountered in the literature on cyanobacteria circadian oscillation
Both strains’ genomes have been sequenced
Both can be reliably transformed by exogenous DNA

5. Incubator
We modified an incubator by installing a timer-controlled fluorescent light (32W + 22W bulbs)
The lights are set to stay on for 16 hours each day
According to Peter Weigele, we should expect growth in 5-7 days (Tuesday-Thursday this week)

6. Next steps Design primers for extracting KaiABC
Learn protocols for transforming PCC7942 and PCC6803
(Maybe): synthesis of kaiABC
Waiting to hear back from…
Susan Golden at UT Austin
Alexander van Oodenaarden at MIT
Jeffrey Chabot