Overview

We are interested in creating a microbial fuel cell that utilizes the facultative anaerobic bacteria, Shewanella oneidensis, to produce renewable energy and clean water.

In order to optimize the growth conditions in the anaerobic chamber of the fuel cell, a fluorescent protein marker will be added so to visualize bacterial growth under different conditions.

We plan to accomplish this using the NirB oxygen-sensitive promoter to induce expression of the glowing gene only when oxygen is scarce. Furthermore, we must engineer a fluorescent LOV domain, which is optimized for expression in S. oneidensis and capable of fluorescence under anaerobic conditions.

This genetic construct will help us ensure that the bacteria are actually growing under anaerobic conditions. This would lead to the creation of a BioBrick that can be deposited back into the “toolbox” parts repository for future iGEM teams.