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==== Game and iGEM Project 2008 ==== | |||
Just a first, brief comment on the idea of making a kind of computer game, but with genetically modified bacteria. As some of you might already know, the iGEM project of our team in 2008 was about creating an artificial preditor-prey system by genetically modifying bacteria. We wanted therefore to create bacteria that would: | |||
a) swim towards a target bacteria | |||
b) kill that target bacteria when it would reach it | |||
The second part (killing) worked really good, but the first part (swimming towards a certain target) didn't work out so good. | |||
But anyway, there are interesting implications in both parts I want to comment on. | |||
'''''a) making bacteria swim in a certain direction''''' | |||
It is pretty well known in literature, that bacteria have certain so-called chemotaxis receptors [http://2008.igem.org/Team:Heidelberg/Project/Sensing] on their surface. These receptors are, in nature, used for recognizing attractand molecules (nutrition, i.e. sugar) or repellents (i.e. toxic molecules). | |||
It is possible to influence (I would not say control, but at least strongly influence) the direction in that bacterial colonies on an agar plate swim by putting repellent and attractand molecules at different points on the plate. To give you one example: If I would put aspartate in the middle of an agar plate with E. coli colonies on it, the E. coli would move in direction of the aspartate. [[image:http://parts.mit.edu/igem07/images/f/f3/SwarmingPic.jpg]] | |||
====Go with the flow==== | ====Go with the flow==== | ||
[[File:Flow-game-screenshot-4.jpg]] | [[File:Flow-game-screenshot-4.jpg]] | ||