Build a bloodtype - From B to A

---

Inspired by the iGEM Team Tübingen of 2014, which also aimed to alleviate blood conserve shortage, this project aims to identify and evaluate enzymes capable of converting blood antigen B to A using molecular docking screens, aswell as bioinformatic and cheminformatic methods to improve screening efficiency.

This is a proof of concept for a general method aiming to identify enzymes capable of catalyzing the selective modification of any non reducing sugar.

This Project could help alleviate the blood conserve shortage observed all around the world and also potentially be impactful in other areas like sugar chemistry.

The research plan involved screening for promising enzymes, followed by overexpression in escherichia coli for purification.

To assess efficacy and selectivity of the identified enzymes, in vitro experiments were planned to be conducted utilizing antigen models mimicking blood antigen fragments, specifically methylated monosaccharides.

A potential future phase of the project involves testing the enzyme candidate on erythrocyte samples.

A second part of the project aimed to improve the catalytic efficiency of erythrocyte surface antigen targeting enzymes by engineering a domain module capable of localizing any fused domain to the surface of erythrocytes. This was planned to be evalutaed using fluorescence imaging.