OUR SPONSORS
The world is running out of natural rubber!
We're the innovative team using moss to produce natural rubber.
Traditional natural rubber comes from rubber trees, which are labor-intensive and environmentally challenging. Synthetic rubber from petroleum isn't much better for our planet.
OUR MISSION
Our iGEM team is pioneering a sustainable method to produce natural rubber using synthetic biology. We aim to explore the methods to efficiently produce long chain natural rubber in moss. This approach minimizes the environmental impact of traditional rubber plantations and provides a greener alternative to petroleum-based synthetic rubber.
THE SOLUTION
Attempts of long-chain rubber production in e. coli have been unsatisfactory
The issue with using e. coli as a chassis for natural rubber production lies in their small size and lack of compartments, which limits their ability to produce long-chain natural rubber. This is why we chose to use moss!
WHY MOSS?
Can be engineered to have large compartments to sustain long-chain natural rubber production.
Can be grown sustainably in photosynthetic reactors, facilitating upscaling.
we aim to optimise the polymerisation process of IPP
into rubber using advanced compartmentalisation strategies:
Virus-like Particle (VLP) Encapsulation
- Involves the expression of phage capsid protein to create VLPs
- HRT2 is fused to a scaffold protein for encapsulation within the VLPs
Liquid-liquid Phase Separation (LLPS)
- Involves the expression of specific RNAs that form cores of phase-separated condensates for HRT2 activity.
- HRT2 fused with specific RNA-binding MCP domains to localise HRT2 to LLPS particles
PHA-Inspired Granule Formation
- Engineer HRT2 enzyme with a hydrophobic domain inspired by PHA synthase (PhaC) to promote granule formation
- Co-express PHA-associated proteins for stabilisation
