Harvesting solar power with anthocyaninsiGEM Team TU Darmstadt 2014

Electricity & Poverty

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Access to electricity leads to• Additional hours spent learning by children• Additional productivity• Improved health• Increased household net income

8 UN Millennium Development Goals to fight hunger & poverty

Africa at night in 2014

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DSCs (or Grätzel cells) are• Cheaper• Don’t need rare metals• More environment-friendly

than classical solar cells

DSCs can• Utilize diffuse light• Light from every angle• Be used in warm regions

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSC) vs. classical solar cells

Dye-sensitized solar cells

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Anthocyanins

• Flavonol derived plant pigments

• Found in higher plants

• Can be used effectively in Grätzel cells

• Heterologous production in E. coli feasible

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Application scenario

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Local partnerVillagers

Government / NGOsLocal industry

DSC producerLocal microcredit

bank

Purchasing machines

Developing concepts

Providing capital

Cooperation Purchasing DSCs

Lending money

Training

Selling DSCs

Conclusions:

1. Project will be applied in hot rural areas

2. Adjusting our pathway

3. Examining “soft” aspects by a techno-moral vignette

Meeting the experts

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Visiting Prof. Dr. Grätzel and Dr. Toby Meyer of Solaronix

• Broad variety of anthocyanins in plants

• Production yield in plants not predictable

• Easy extraction from E. coli

• No unwanted side products

• Higher yield in shorter time with less space consumption

Why in E. coli?

8

pelargonidin

Katsumuto et al., 2007

The pathway

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Central branching pointSplitting of our pathway

iGEM Uppsala 2013

BBa_K1497001BBa_K1497000BBa_K1033000BBa_K1033001

chi4-cl chstalR R R R

From tyrosine to naringenin

naringenin producing operon (BBa_K1497007)

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Naringenin biosensor (1)

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naringenin

FdeR homodimer

naringenin bound to FdeR homodimer

A: Naringenin biosensor with CFP as reporter (BBa_K1497022)B: Naringenin biosensor with mKate as reporter (BBa_K1497021)C: Naringenin biosensor without a reporter (BBa_K1497019)D: Naringenin biosensor with GFP as reporter (BBa_K1497020)

Naringenin biosensor (2)

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GFP and mKate biosensor combined have a broader range!

GFP mKate

Quantification of naringeninproduction

13Quick comparison of different constructs!

T7 operon: ≈ 3 µMConst. operon: ≈ 1 µMafter 16 h of incubation

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

Rel

ativ

e Fl

uo

resc

en

ce U

nit

s (R

FU)

Neg. control

T7 naringenin operon(BBa_K1497017)Const. naringenin operon(BBa_K1497016)

BBa_K1497011BBa_K1497010BBa_K1497009

From naringenin to pelargonidin

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dfrf3h ansR RR

BBa_K1497023

No glycosylation -> extraction with organic solvents possible!

pelargonidin

pelargonidin extracted with dichloromethane

DFR ANS

Metabolic channeling

15protein scaffold by iGEM Team SJTU-BioX-Shanghai 2012

SH3 GBDPDZ

naringenin pelargonidin

F3H

Modularization

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Construction of scaffold variations by BglII Brick cloning strategy

See SCUT 2014 for S. cerevisiae

• Elastic Network Models

• Linear Response Theory

• All Atom Molecular Dynamics

Elastic Network Model

Dry lab to wet lab

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Modeling lead to shortened anthocyanidin synthase (eANS, BBa_K1497002)

• Modularizable Grätzel cell holder

• Printed with bio-degradable PLA

• First test: ≈ 0.6 mA and 150 mV !

• See the models at our poster

Mission accomplished!

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Achievements

• Characterizing 23 of 33 BioBrick parts sent to the registry

• Construction of a functional pelargonidin pathway in E. coli

• Engineering and improving of ANS by in silico protein multi-scale modeling

• Introducing three functional naringeninbiosensors

• Introducing an improved protein scaffold

• Describing a novel Policy & Practicesapproach

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SH3 GBDPDZ

pelargonidin extracted with dichloromethane

More achievements!

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Visit our Wiki for:

• Our Safety approach

• More modeling data

• More scaffold improvements

• Open Hardware models (3D-printer STL files)

• Open Software packages for R

• Our full application scenario & techno-moral vignette

Acknowledgements

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The TeamRico BallmannSebastian BarthelMalte BlumenrothThomas DohmenMax DombrowskyKai FenzlTobias GabrielSascha HeinNiklas HummelCarmen KleinKai KucharzewskiBenjamin MayerChristian MendeLaurin MonnheimerSebastian PallukSven RumpfFabian RohdenDaniel SachsRenè Sahm

Christian SatorAndreas SchmidtChristian SürderMichael SürderBastian WagnerAlex Wyllie

AdvisorsProf. Dr. Heribert WarzechaSven Jager

Thank you!Prof. Dr. Katja SchmitzProf. Dr. Kay HamacherProf. Dr. Heinz KoepplProf. Dr. Jörg SimonProf. Dr. Adam BertlProf. Dr. Gerhard ThielPD Dr. Tobias MeckelSabine Fräbel

Henning PennekampJascha VolkDr. Melanie KernDr. Stefan MartensAlexander SchlauerBarbara WolfAnne EinhäuplProf. Dr. Michael GrätzelDr. Toby MeyerProf. Dr. Alfred NordmannWieke BettenCharlotte Kaspar