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Coupling spatial segregation with synthetic circuits to control bacterial survival.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Huang, S; Lee, AJ; Tsoi, R; Wu, F; Zhang, Y; Leong, KW; You, L
Published in: Molecular systems biology
February 2016

Engineered bacteria have great potential for medical and environmental applications. Fulfilling this potential requires controllability over engineered behaviors and scalability of the engineered systems. Here, we present a platform technology, microbial swarmbot, which employs spatial arrangement to control the growth dynamics of engineered bacteria. As a proof of principle, we demonstrated a safeguard strategy to prevent unintended bacterial proliferation. In particular, we adopted several synthetic gene circuits to program collective survival in Escherichia coli: the engineered bacteria could only survive when present at sufficiently high population densities. When encapsulated by permeable membranes, these bacteria can sense the local environment and respond accordingly. The cells inside the microbial swarmbot capsules will survive due to their high densities. Those escaping from a capsule, however, will be killed due to a decrease in their densities. We demonstrate that this design concept is modular and readily generalizable. Our work lays the foundation for engineering integrated and programmable control of hybrid biological-material systems for diverse applications.

Duke Scholars

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Published In

Molecular systems biology

DOI

EISSN

1744-4292

ISSN

1744-4292

Publication Date

February 2016

Volume

12

Issue

2

Start / End Page

859

Related Subject Headings

  • Systems Biology
  • Polylysine
  • Models, Molecular
  • Microbial Viability
  • Lab-On-A-Chip Devices
  • Genetic Engineering
  • Gene Regulatory Networks
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial
  • Escherichia coli
  • Bioinformatics
 

Citation

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Huang, S., Lee, A. J., Tsoi, R., Wu, F., Zhang, Y., Leong, K. W., & You, L. (2016). Coupling spatial segregation with synthetic circuits to control bacterial survival. Molecular Systems Biology, 12(2), 859. https://doi.org/10.15252/msb.20156567
Huang, Shuqiang, Anna Jisu Lee, Ryan Tsoi, Feilun Wu, Ying Zhang, Kam W. Leong, and Lingchong You. “Coupling spatial segregation with synthetic circuits to control bacterial survival.Molecular Systems Biology 12, no. 2 (February 2016): 859. https://doi.org/10.15252/msb.20156567.
Huang S, Lee AJ, Tsoi R, Wu F, Zhang Y, Leong KW, et al. Coupling spatial segregation with synthetic circuits to control bacterial survival. Molecular systems biology. 2016 Feb;12(2):859.
Huang, Shuqiang, et al. “Coupling spatial segregation with synthetic circuits to control bacterial survival.Molecular Systems Biology, vol. 12, no. 2, Feb. 2016, p. 859. Epmc, doi:10.15252/msb.20156567.
Huang S, Lee AJ, Tsoi R, Wu F, Zhang Y, Leong KW, You L. Coupling spatial segregation with synthetic circuits to control bacterial survival. Molecular systems biology. 2016 Feb;12(2):859.
Journal cover image

Published In

Molecular systems biology

DOI

EISSN

1744-4292

ISSN

1744-4292

Publication Date

February 2016

Volume

12

Issue

2

Start / End Page

859

Related Subject Headings

  • Systems Biology
  • Polylysine
  • Models, Molecular
  • Microbial Viability
  • Lab-On-A-Chip Devices
  • Genetic Engineering
  • Gene Regulatory Networks
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial
  • Escherichia coli
  • Bioinformatics