E.L.S.A: E. coli Learning Suboptimal Acclimatization

Abstract

Low intrinsic stability has marred the production of psychrophilic proteins in commonly used mesophilic systems. This may lead to a lopsided bias towards the expression of the few psychrophilic proteins which can manage a stable structure at those temperatures. Of the two possible approaches to help counterpoise the expression in favour of most psychrophilic proteins, the approach we have taken is to develop a new psychrophilic host. Rather than characterizing novel strains, we plan on converting a highly characterized system in synthetic biology, E.coli, by introducing genes that confer cold-tolerance to it thereby reducing dependency on regular mesophilic hosts and possibly making it the model system for cold temperature-based systems.