Tardigrades, or "water bears", are microscopic animals known for their astounding ability to survive in environmental extremes. For instance, they can survive complete desiccation for up to a decade. This survival mechanism relies on in part the expression of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs), which have no definitive secondary or tertiary structure. The goal of this study is to transform fungi with a tardigrade gene responsible for coding one such IDP to phenotypically alter the fungus to withstand harsher environmental conditions compared to the wild-type. Mutant generation involves producing fungal strains that have successfully integrated a recombinant DNA construct designed to express a codon-optimized tardigrade protein. Engineered mutant strains will be compared with the original wild-type in their response to a number of environmental stressors. The results of these experiments may provide insight into potential applications of expressing IDPs in creating biomaterial capable of withstanding a broader range of real-world conditions.
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