An observation method for autonomous signaling-mediated synthetic diversification in Escherichia coli

Phenotypic diversification of cells in development and regeneration is conceptually modeled by the motion of marbles rolling down valleys on the Waddington landscape, the main feature of which is bifurcations of the valleys. We have experimentally shown that this feature is sufficient to achieve phenotypic diversification by the construction of a synthetic phenotypic diversification system in Escherichia coli. Cells containing the synthetic phenotypic diversification system were diversified into two distinct cell states, high and low, through autonomous signaling-mediated bifurcation, when all cells were initialized to the low state. In this chapter, we illustrate the detailed experimental procedures involved in the initialization of cells and the observation of the phenotypic diversification.