Fit coli - iGEM competition
Obesity has now reached epidemic proportions worldwide, which has serious consequences because obesity is associated with various chronic human diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases. With the aim to protect oneself against obesity and debilitating diseases caused by a high-fat diet, we are using a synthetic biology approach to design anEscherichia coli strain (called Fit. Coli) that has an enhanced ability to uptake and convert excess fatty acids from fatty foods into a-linolenic acid (ALA). The strategy is to engineer the fadL and fadDgenes along with three desaturase genes to facilitate the uptake of long-chain fatty acids and their biotransformation to ALA by the “Fit. Coli” strain. It is predicted that the ALA converted from excess fatty acids by Fit. Coli is converted to docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an omega-3-fatty acid, in the human gut, which is well known to have many positive health benefits.
Project wiki: http://2014.igem.org/Team:CityU_HK
Project Team
Ada Yeung, Anthony Lo, Cherlin Lee, Dorcas Choi, Joanna Wu, Ken Lau, Lyann Chu, Maria Li, Marco So, Paul Tse, Paul Chi, Ronald Tse
Supervisor: Dr. Richard Kong, Dr. David, Sung-Kay Chiu, Dr. Terrence , C. K. Lau
Year
2014
Location
Hong Kong & Boston, USA
Project Scientific Poster
Media coverage
(HK Headline) http://goo.gl/SRGvqj,
(Sing Tao Daily) http://goo.gl/ykDsIJ