This year LINKS-China targets the production of two expensive and indispensable fragrance fixatives molecules, ambrein and santalol, by genetically modifying Saccharomyces Cerevisiae. This is in favour of reducing the cost of santalol, the promotion of ambrein and the conservation of sperm whales, as well as the sandalwood forest. Our team has achieved the following contributions below.

In our project, we successfully utilized a series of existing parts, including pTDH3, tTDH1, pPGK1, tPGK1, pTEF2, tSSA1 to express key genes including ClSS, CYP736A167 and SaCPR2 in yeast. After our engineering and modification, the target product santalene and santalol were successfully produced. Our results are now been supplemented in the characterization section! (Lee, 2015)

We applied the yeast tool kit to assemble tHMG1 and IDI1 genes into plasmids containing promoters and terminators suitable for target protein expressions in yeast (Lee, 2015). We use pTDH3 and tTDH1 to express tHMG1, and pPGK1 and tPGK1 to express the IDI1 gene respectively. Finally, we named the strain with tHMG1 and IDI1 genes inserted at the His3 as strain Lv1. 2.21 mg/L farnesol and 0.945 mg/L squalene can be detected in the fermentation broth of strain Lv1, while farnesol and squalene were not detected in the wildtype strain. The GC-MS analysis indicates that this modification can provide the cell with abundant supply for the synthesis of terpenoids.

We built up an amazing part collection contains necessary genes to produce santalene, santalol and ambrein. You can learn more about our part collection in the our parts section! (https://2023.igem.wiki/links-china/parts) This fantastic part collection can provide everybody with the inspiration and efficient methods to utilize the native MVA pathway in cell for producing santalol and any other types of terpenoids in S. cerevisiae!

This year LINKS-China is devoted to protect the sandalwood forests and to reduce the cost of santalol, since the current production process of sandalwood oil is harmful to the environment and also time-consuming hence limiting the production of santalol! By inserting CISS into the yeast, our project could potentially achieve higher production of santalol in an environmental friendly and efficient manner, therefore to reduce the cost of santalol for perfume companies -- higher production and less time consuming! We want to make santalol further more available for any potential consumers.

In terms of Human Practices, we organised perfume DIY workshop to interact with the public and delivered educational lectures to students in both school and people in local communities. We received positive responses from the two questionnaires we sent out before and after the activities! Most of the people involved have risen their awareness of synthetic biology, their prejudice towards GMO are mostly disrupted through the activities. The format arrangement of this educational activity has been announced on the Education page(https://2023.igem.wiki/links-china/education). This may help future iGEM teams and start-ups that use GMOs gain more potential consumers!

As for education, we realised that older people are generally lack knowledge of life sciences, even holding prejudice towards GMOs. To help them realize how actually GMOs work and diminish their concerns, we wrote a script and conducted science popularisation through drama performances in nursing homes on October 2nd, 2023 and finally received a overall positive feedback. This event could be a potential model for reducing concerns about the safety of GMOs and gene editing technology among elderlies. Furthermore, this is also a practical method to propagandize and promote other up-to-date knowledges about life sciences to the elder communities!

Reider Apel, A., d'Espaux, L., Wehrs, M., Sachs, D., Li, R. A., Tong, G. J., Garber, M., Nnadi, O., Zhuang, W., Hillson, N. J., Keasling, J. D., & Mukhopadhyay, A. (2017). A Cas9-based toolkit to program gene expression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Nucleic acids research, 45(1), 496-508.