IGEM:Stanford/2009/Project Homeostasis/Immunosuppression Device

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Summary


The anti-immunosuppressive device consists of two components: a sensor and a responder. The sensor will detect local concentrations of a marker indicative of Treg-driven immunosuppression. When the levels of this input signal reach above a certain baseline threshold, the sensor will induce activity from the responder. The resulting output signal will modify the local cytokine milieu to support differentiation of pro-inflammatory Th17 cells and repress the immunosuppressive Treg lineage.

Parts Designs
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Comments

 * Rather than looking at metabolic changes due to Th17 cells, maybe we should look at precursor changes that result in Th17 differentiation. Think of it as a feed forward mechanism. I am thinking in particular things that are affected by Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor (AHR) and RAR-related orphan receptor gamma (RORy).
 * Check out this paper on Th17 And Treg control. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7191/abs/nature06880.html

Other Considerations
To what extent will 5-methyltryptophan inhibit growth of our machine? 5-methyltryptophan has been identified as an antimetabolite that induces false feedback inhibition of the trp biosynthetic pathway.

Other potential "input" signals: IL-10, TGF-beta, byproducts of HO-1 Other potential "output" signals: IL-17, IL-1-beta, CpG DNA, TLR stimuli

Challenges

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Results

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