Memo-Cell project

DNA entity integration

To integrate a DNA sequence into the chromosome in a stable manner, the Phage recombination systems seemed to be appropriate, as this can allow the integration of a whole plasmid into the bacterial chromosome, as long as it carries an attP recombination site. By expression the phage integrase, one can easily trigger the plasmid integration into the chromosome via the recombination between the plasmidic attP site and the chromosomal attB site. Click here to see a detailed figure

When integrating into the chromosome a plasmid via phage recombination, the original chromosomal recombination is disrupted and hence prevent any other integration. To achieve a sequential integration into the chromosome, we had to find a way to recreate a functional recombination site after the first integration, so as to be able to add another piece of DNA.
We could not directly excised the whole DNA sequence that had just been integrated, as no DNA sequence of the plasmid would stay on the chromosome to count. Hence, we had to chose another mechanism.

Integration site regeneration

To do this, we have chosen to engineer the Tn916 transposon.
Click here to see a detailed figure

We designed heavily mutated flanking sequences ('arms') of the transposon by replacing them with the two halfs of the phage recombination site so that once the transposon is excised, a functional phage recombination would be regenerated on the chromosome. The designed sequences retain the essential nucleotides of the flanking sequences for the functional excision of the transposon, resulting in a complex hybrid where mutations have been inserted both in the flanking sequences and the phage recombination site.



Moreover, we had to drastically reduce the size of the Tn916 (18kb) in order for it to be experimentally amenable. We therefore reduced its sizebyf 90%, cloning between the left and right arms either a Kan-resistance cassette (~1kb) or a Kan-resistance and a Lac-Z alpha cassette (~1,8kb). The total size of our mutated transposon was either 1,4 kb or 2,2 kb.
The efficiency of excision using the reduced transposon with mutated arms has been assessed (protocol and detailed results in the result page).
We have also assessed the efficiency of recombination using the mutated phage recombination sites (protocol and detailed results in the result page).

Now that we had working systems to integrate a DNA sequence into the chromosome and another one to reform a functional recombination site, we had to integrate them together so that these two could work sequentially.

To have a sequential integration of DNA sequences one after the other on the chromosome, the new combination site after excision had to be adjacent to the DNA sequence that had just been inserted.


First design

One could have thought to place the mutated Tn916 directly in the plasmid that will be integrated in the chromosome. But then, the transposon excision would happen not only on the chromosome but also in the leftover plasmids in the cytoplasm, drastically reducing the chance to have a plasmid still containing the Transposon at the next round of counting.





Second design

However, as excision of the transposon requires not only the presence of both the Left and the Right arm, but also that these two arms are on the same DNA molecule, we constructed our integrated plasmid with only half of the transposon, with the left arm only.
The right arm would be located on the chromosome after the phage recombination site




Third and final design

Sum up

Algorithmic overview of the counting process