BabbleBrick v. 1.5 - new and improved!
As with all scientific research, and with most things in life; a first attempt is never the best attempt. Recently, we have had to update our BabbleBrick plans. For a quick overview of BabbleBricks, see here.
In short, BabbleBricks are designed to be modular information coding fragments of DNA. They are the basis of modularity and affordability in our project. By using them, our end users won't need to synthesise their own DNA to store information; rather they will just need to construct their data using our pre-synthesised BabbleBricks. This vastly reduces the cost of DNA data storage.
Our plan is to store our DNA data cell free; however, to be extra safe, we decided to include a STOP codon region in each of our Bricks. A stop codon is a three base pair sequence of DNA that stops a protein from being synthesised based on the DNA sequence. Since this is included in our BabbleBricks, even if one found its way into a cell, it will never do any harm by coding for a protein.
Our first BabbleBrick design (v. 1.1, if you will) had an 11 bp stop codon region. This region had a stop codon in every frame.
The problem: the stop codons only read in the 5'-3' top strand. This means that if synthesising a protein on the bottom strand, there would be nothing to terminate synthesis.
After a moment of stunned silence and frustration for not noticing this flaw sooner, we realised the only thing we could do was redesign our BabbleBricks. Without a stop region that ran in both directions, what is even the point of having it?
As frustrating as it was to have to go back to almost the very beginning and re-design and re-think, it was ultimately for the best. If we ditched the region all together and just called it a 'spacer' region instead, we would be losing one of the major features of our project; safety.
And so, in the spirit of the iGEM learning cycle - design, test, build and learn- a cycle we had to repeat more than once... we can proudly present to you BabbleBrick version 1.5!
Our BabbleBricks now boast a 17bp long STOP region - one that can be read in the proper direction on both strands. Our 'word' or information sequences our now 7bp long as they include a word restriction gap that prevents 'illegal' or unwanted restriction enzyme sites from forming inside a Brick. This will stop our BabbleBricks and longer constructions from being broken up during assembly. Version 1.5 also has the benefit of being slightly longer - this makes it a little easier to work with in the lab. Our encoding computer programme has also been updated with the new sequence so all aspects of our project are now up to date and ready to go!
Despite the extra work and initial frustration, the whole team is thrilled with our new design! We're looking forward to ordering some new BabbleBricks and constructing longer sentences - more on this in a future lab note!
@EdiGEM2016
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