Consensus T7 Promoter for Antibodies

We contributed to the data of an existing iGEM part, a consensus T7 promoter (BBa_K3716007). We used this T7 promoter together with a LacO to control the expression of antibody proteins, anti-IL-6-scFv, and anti-CA125-scFv.

T7 promoter is a commonly used promoter, which can be recognized by T7 RNA polymerase and efficiently transcribe downstream genes. It is generally a strong promoter that can result in 5 times more heterogeneous expression of the inserted genes compared to generic E. coli genes.

This effect is usually desirable in production of proteins, but often it would also lead to misfolding due to high protein production rate, especially in the case of antibodies, whose structures are complex and require more folding.

We tuned down the working concentration of IPTG upon induction, and the experiment results showed successful expression of both anti-IL-6-scFv and anti-CA125-scFv.

Fig 1. Successful expression of two scFv antibodies with T7 promoter.

Fig 2. Improved expression of the antibody scFv with T7 promoter in a new strain, E. coli Shuffle T7.

Public Education Materials on Gynecological Diseases

We curated information and created educational materials to raise public awareness on gynecological diseases. They can come in many different formats, and we have received warm reception with the mini videos, podcasts, and in-person educational lectures.

The scripts for the videos, the podcast scripts of 10+ episodes, and the lecture slides are available on the iGEM server. You can read about the activity details on our Education page and find the download links therein.