UoW iGEM 2018: Polystyrene
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This year, we chose to battle plastic pollution by biodegrading polystyrene.
Polystyrene is a plastic most commonly known for its expanded polystyrene form, also known as styrofoam. Due to its low production costs, strong shock absorption and good thermal insulation properties, styrofoam is commonly used in many single-use products such as food containers, plates, cups, eating utensils and storage molds of other products. Recycling it, however, turns out to be economically unfavorable due to its low density. Most single-use polystyrene products thus end up filling up the landfills, generally requiring at least a thousand years to degrade. Waste polystyrene easily erodes down to microplastic levels at which it easily travels through the air. This property of polystyrene enables it to be inhaled or eventually end up in the sea, where it gets ingested by sea animals. The exact effects of inhalation and ingestion of polystyrene and its monomer, styrene, are not well enough studied, however oestrogen and growth hormone hormone mimicking properties have been identified and indicate that through disbalancing the endocrine communication of these systems they could be carcinogenic.
We are planning to design a bioreactor composed of a three chamber system:
The first one being a chamber for dissolving expanded polystyrene using naturally and reducing its volume as a result.
The second one being a chamber for depolymerising the polystyrene mass that is gathered as a mixture of both dissolved expanded polystyrene and high density polystyrene waste.
The third chamber containing our engineered bacterial cultures that would completely metabolise the styrene monomers as an energy source.
The genetic aspect of our project is focused on designing a genetically engineered strain of Escherichia coli bacteria to host a degradation pathway that is found to degrade a similar molecule to styrene (the single monomer of polystyrene); identified in an F1 strain of Pseudomonas Putida as the tod operon. A previous team from the University of Leicester in 2012 and 2013 attempted to translate this whole pathway into parts, which we plan to continue off from and publish the rest of the operon into biobricks as well as to modify the enzymes involved in degrading the styrene-like molecule to target and break down styrene efficiently. If the degradation pathway is successful, it would pave the way for future research by iGEM teams to improve, as well as allowing the integration of this system in real world processing industries.
As any student led research team, we are dependent on the support from others. Financial assistance would allow us to have sufficient amounts of reagents, enzymes and cell cultures to work with, as well as secure our members to travel to the giant Jamboree conference in Boston, USA and present our project.
Polystyrene is a plastic most commonly known for its expanded polystyrene form, also known as styrofoam. Due to its low production costs, strong shock absorption and good thermal insulation properties, styrofoam is commonly used in many single-use products such as food containers, plates, cups, eating utensils and storage molds of other products. Recycling it, however, turns out to be economically unfavorable due to its low density. Most single-use polystyrene products thus end up filling up the landfills, generally requiring at least a thousand years to degrade. Waste polystyrene easily erodes down to microplastic levels at which it easily travels through the air. This property of polystyrene enables it to be inhaled or eventually end up in the sea, where it gets ingested by sea animals. The exact effects of inhalation and ingestion of polystyrene and its monomer, styrene, are not well enough studied, however oestrogen and growth hormone hormone mimicking properties have been identified and indicate that through disbalancing the endocrine communication of these systems they could be carcinogenic.
We are planning to design a bioreactor composed of a three chamber system:
The first one being a chamber for dissolving expanded polystyrene using naturally and reducing its volume as a result.
The second one being a chamber for depolymerising the polystyrene mass that is gathered as a mixture of both dissolved expanded polystyrene and high density polystyrene waste.
The third chamber containing our engineered bacterial cultures that would completely metabolise the styrene monomers as an energy source.
The genetic aspect of our project is focused on designing a genetically engineered strain of Escherichia coli bacteria to host a degradation pathway that is found to degrade a similar molecule to styrene (the single monomer of polystyrene); identified in an F1 strain of Pseudomonas Putida as the tod operon. A previous team from the University of Leicester in 2012 and 2013 attempted to translate this whole pathway into parts, which we plan to continue off from and publish the rest of the operon into biobricks as well as to modify the enzymes involved in degrading the styrene-like molecule to target and break down styrene efficiently. If the degradation pathway is successful, it would pave the way for future research by iGEM teams to improve, as well as allowing the integration of this system in real world processing industries.
As any student led research team, we are dependent on the support from others. Financial assistance would allow us to have sufficient amounts of reagents, enzymes and cell cultures to work with, as well as secure our members to travel to the giant Jamboree conference in Boston, USA and present our project.
Organizer
Marko Obrvan
Organizer
England
