Extended Metabolic Biosensor Design for Dynamic Pathway Regulation of Cell Factories

Transcription factor-based biosensors naturally occur in metabolic pathways to maintain cell growth and to provide a robust response to environmental fluctuations. Extended metabolic biosensors, i.e., the cascading of a bio-conversion pathway and a transcription factor (TF) responsive to the downstream effector metabolite, provide sensing capabilities beyond natural effectors for implementing context-aware synthetic genetic circuits and bio-observers. However, the engineering of such multi-step circuits is challenged by stability and robustness issues. In order to streamline the design of TF-based biosensors in metabolic pathways, here we investigate the response of a genetic circuit combining a TF-based extended metabolic biosensor with an antithetic integral circuit, a feedback controller that achieves robustness against environmental fluctuations. The dynamic response of an extended biosensor-based regulated flavonoid pathway is analyzed in order to address the issues of biosensor tuning of the regulated pathway under industrial biomanufacturing operating constraints.