Background

What is Synthetic Biology?

Not many people have heard of Synthetic Biology. Synthetic biology essentially aims to utilize natures tricks to design and build artificial biological systems for engineering purposes as well as a way to get a better understanding of why biological systems are set up as they are. The term “synthetic biology” was first used on genetically engineered bacteria that were created with recombinant DNA technology. Parts from natural biological systems are taken, characterized and simplified and used as a component of a highly unnatural, engineered, biological system. The term was then used when referring to when organic synthesis is used to generate artificial molecules that mimic natural molecules such as enzymes.

• those who deal with re-designing and fabricating existing biological systems.
• those who deal with designing and fabricating biological components that do not already exist in the real world.

Synthetic biology provides us with a new perspective from which we can understand and ultimately utilize life for our own benefits. [1,2,3]

Introduction

Aim

The goal of our project is to enable colonies of ''E. coli'' bacteria to transition between production of two different reporter proteins. In our system, switching between states will be induced by exposing the bacteria to light. Each of the states will have a specific frequency associated with it. There are multiple potential applications for biologicals "switches" such as these, this includes the improved control of production of additives in industrial biotechnological processes.

Project Concept

As previously stated, the main goal of our project is to design a bistable switch. The switching between the two states will be controlled by the introduction of two different wavelengths of light, each wavelength responsible for the induction of a different state. As a proof of concept, we’re using fluorescent proteins as reporter genes which makes it easy to observe and characterise the system. In principle, however, any reporter gene can be used.

Our original project concept revolved around using light-receptors to instigate the switch between the two stable state. It was thought that the production of the first reporter protein would be induced by red light (660 nm). At the same time, production of the other reporter will be suppressed by a coexpressed repressor. Conversely, production of the second reporter would be induced by blue light (470 nm). Bistability of the system is achieved by using two repressors which negatively regulate each other’s expression. This enables the system to sustain state without continuous input, i. e. once production of a reporter protein is initiated, it will persist until the system is forced into the other state.

Our project concept has since changed to using two different carbohydrate sources as a means of switching between the two stable states. This means that the state in which the bacteria will be found depends on which one of two carbohydrate sources it was last exposed.