Expanding genetic engineering capabilities in Vibrio natriegens with the Vnat Collection

Vibrio natriegens, with its exceptionally fast growth rate, has great promise as a revolutionary chassis for synthetic biology, yet the realization of its full potential has been limited by the lack of robust, standardized genetic tools. Here, we present the Vnat Collection, a comprehensive, modular toolkit specifically engineered to overcome these limitations. Leveraging optimized Golden Gate cloning strategies, we introduce improved junction sequences and a highly efficient dropout part system, achieving up to a 300-fold increase in assembly efficiency. Our toolkit significantly expands the synthetic biology toolbox by providing a wide array of characterized inducible promoters, enabling precise, orthogonal gene regulation, and novel operon connectors to streamline the construction of multi-gene pathways critical for metabolic engineering. Furthermore, we enhance genome editing workflows through refined NT-CRISPR methods, incorporating homology-flanked targeting constructs and demonstrating a simplified protocol that eliminates intermediate purification steps. With over 220 rigorously validated modular components, the Vnat Collection establishes an advanced standard for genetic engineering of V. natriegens, empowering researchers to efficiently harness this organism's unparalleled potential for diverse biotechnology applications.