Tabula Rasa: Decoupling Genetic Information from Medium
In all different cells, tRNA is an indispensable participant in the translation process. It gives us a new way to regulate and change the protein products, and much research was conducted to change tRNA according to our needs such as non-canonical amino acid and gene therapy. In this project, we want to figure out whether we can regulate the protein by switching the tRNA involved in the translation process. To reach this goal, we built a gene circuit composed of a constitutively expressed nonsense mutated GFP, one induced tyrosine amber suppressor tRNA, and one induced histidine amber suppressor tRNA. We hoped to see bacteria turned green when tyrosine amber suppressor tRNA transcribe, but it could switch to blue after we change the inducer. Currently, we realized the transformation from mutated GFP to either GFP or BFP depending on the tRNA that appears in the cells. It means that external tRNA is involved in the translation and rescue of the fluorescent protein. In the next step, we are going to change the promoter of tRNA from constitutive to inducible so that we can switch between GFP and BFP by added inducer.