FURI | Spring 2021

Using Cyanophycin Production as a Screening Method for Cyanophycin Synthetase Activity

This project’s motivation is to determine a method of measuring the amount of Cyanophycin (CGP) produced in E. coli cultures that express native Cyanophycin Synthetase (CphA). CGP is an amino acid polymer with an aspartic acid backbone and arginine side chains. CGP must be extracted and purified from E. coli cell cultures before being measured with a Bicinchoninic Acid (BCA) protein assay. Measuring CGP production as a screening method will allow for the directed evolution of CphA to produce mutant enzyme variants and thus the creation of novel biopolymers.