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Inducible cell-to-cell signaling for tunable dynamics in microbial communities
Arianna Miano1,2, Michael J Liao1,2, Jeff Hasty3,4,5
1Department of Bioengineering, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Nature Communications
|March 6, 2020
Summary
Researchers engineered an inducible quorum sensing system for precise control of bacterial dynamics. This innovation enables advanced applications in biomolecular computing and living therapeutics by coordinating microbial populations.
Area of Science:
- Synthetic Biology
- Microbial Engineering
Background:
- Bacteria are increasingly vital in biotechnology, enabling applications like biomolecular computing and living therapeutics.
- Precise control of bacterial dynamics is crucial for complex, spatially distributed biotechnological systems.
Purpose of the Study:
- To engineer a novel inducible quorum sensing system for precise control of bacterial populations and communities.
- To demonstrate the system's utility in cargo delivery and multi-strain community engineering.
Main Methods:
- Engineering an inducible quorum sensing (QS) system.
- Genetic equipping for cargo delivery applications.
- Testing for cross-talk with existing QS systems.
- Demonstrating inducibility in multi-strain bacterial communities.
Main Results:
- The engineered QS system provides precise tunability of bacterial dynamics at both population and community levels.
- The system demonstrated effectiveness in genetically engineered cargo delivery.
- The system showed no cross-talk with most well-characterized QS systems, enabling multi-strain community applications.
Conclusions:
- The developed inducible quorum sensing system offers precise remote control over bacterial behavior.
- This system facilitates the translation of synthetic biology designs into practical applications, particularly in engineered microbial communities and therapeutics.
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