Micro-organisms and their Structures

2016

"Iron-storing nanocompartments for potential biotechnological application"

Research for undergraduate Bachelors degree

(University of Reading, Simon Andrews Group)

I worked with nanocompartments, small microbial organelles which have promising potential biotechnological applications (e.g. drug delivery). The particualar nanocompartment I was working on was from the extremophile archaea Pyrococcus furiosus which lives in hydrothermal vents.

I worked to understanding these nanocompartments at the genetic level and also at a translated purified protein level.

Why is this work important?

We still have a lot to learn about micro-organsism. Many associate them with disease and sickness but they can also really help us.

In the field of biotechnology, we can use biological systems to help improve quality of life for humans.

Nanocompartments are a good example of this. If we understand them in better detail, we can apply them to help solve problems we face as society.

Nanocompartments show a lot of promise for potential drug delivery vehicles for precise targeting of disease inside the body. They are also a good fit for assisting with the industrial manufacturing of biological chemicals, many of which are used for research or medicine.

Laboratory Techniques

Below is a list of the type of work I carried out in the lab as part of this project.

Molecular Biology

This is the manipulation and analysis of genetic material. For me this is in the form of DNA, the genetic code for all living things.

I extracted and purified DNA from bacteria, synthesised new DNA and sequenced the DNA to reveal the code within.

In living things, genes in DNA encode for proteins. I was working with a gene which encoded for an interesting structure found in certain microbes.

We have organs like heart and lungs. Microbes like bacteria and Archaea are no exceptions. They have tiny organs called organelles inside them to help them survive.

Once such organelle type are nanocompartments. These are small ball-like structures which can carry out reactions, and in the case of the nanocompartment I was interested in, store iron.

I order to work with the protein, I had to first work with the DNA. With some molecular biological know-how, I was able to get bacteria to produce these nanocompartments for me so that I could purify and test their function.

Protein Biochemistry

Once I had produced and purified the nanocompartment protein, it was time to test it out.

This took the form of bench-top assays where I was testing physical and chemical properties associated with the nanocompartments.

These are reactions which give us a better understanding about this protein such as where is might exist in the cell, what its role is and how it carries this function out.

Growth Assays

These assays tested the role of the nanocompartments in the bacteria themselves. I was interested in how these organelles helped the bacteria to grow and survive.

By testing bacteria with the nanocompartments inserted under different growth conditions, I was able to work out what these structures were doing.

Turns out, it was iron! Bacteria need nutrients and minerals to grow just like us. One of these is iron, the metal. The nanocompartments would gather any iron from the envionment to help with growth when there wasnt very much of it.

This would be good for the survival of the bacteria but would also serve as a good defence mechanism against other bacteria without iron-storing nanocompartments.