Design and analysis of of synthetic MMP-9 sensors as diagnostic tools for concussions

Millions of individuals suffer concussions each year; yet an accurate, reliable, and portable diagnostic for concussions does not exist, making a novel concussion detection system necessary. MMP9 is a biomarker whose concentration in the blood increases after suffering a head injury. We designed a chimeric protein sensitive to MMP9 and planned to compare it to a MMP9 repressor system to detect the status of an individual’s condition from a blood sample. When MMP9 is tested, the chimeric protein system will use B-lactamase to hydrolyze nirtrocfin producing a brown color. The repressor system will produce GFP because MMP9 cleaves the repressor from pPROT allowing transcription to occur. The MMP9 repressor system showed that by adding MMP9 there was an increase in GFP production