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Title: Engineering an allosteric transcription factor to respond to new ligands

Journal Article · · Nature Methods
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.3696· OSTI ID:1239401
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [3];  [1];  [4]; ORCiD logo [5];  [2];  [6];  [1];  [1]
  1. Harvard Univ., Boston, MA (United States). Wyss Inst. for Biologically-Inspired Engineering; Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA (United States). Dept. of Genetics
  2. Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States). Dept. of Biochemistry. Howard Hughes Medical Inst.
  3. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States). UCLA-USDOE Inst. for Genomics and Proteomics
  4. Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States). Dept. of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology; Yale Univ., West Haven, CT (United States). Systems Biology Inst.
  5. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States). Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry
  6. Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States). Dept. of Genome Sciences. Dept. of Medicine. Howard Hughes Medical Inst.

Genetic regulatory proteins inducible by small molecules are useful synthetic biology tools as sensors and switches. Bacterial allosteric transcription factors (aTFs) are a major class of regulatory proteins, but few aTFs have been redesigned to respond to new effectors beyond natural aTF-inducer pairs. Altering inducer specificity in these proteins is difficult because substitutions that affect inducer binding may also disrupt allostery. In this paper, we engineered an aTF, the Escherichia coli lac repressor, LacI, to respond to one of four new inducer molecules: fucose, gentiobiose, lactitol and sucralose. Using computational protein design, single-residue saturation mutagenesis or random mutagenesis, along with multiplex assembly, we identified new variants comparable in specificity and induction to wild-type LacI with its inducer, isopropyl β-D-1-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG). Finally, the ability to create designer aTFs will enable applications including dynamic control of cell metabolism, cell biology and synthetic gene circuits.

Research Organization:
Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); National Inst. of Health (NIH) (United States)
Contributing Organization:
Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States); Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States); Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
Grant/Contract Number:
FG02-02ER63445; FC02-02ER63421; AC02-06CH11357; 1P41 GM103533; P41 RR015301; P41 GM103403
OSTI ID:
1239401
Journal Information:
Nature Methods, Vol. 13, Issue 2; ISSN 1548-7091
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
ENGLISH
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 198 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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A microbial sensor for organophosphate hydrolysis exploiting an engineered specificity switch in a transcription factor journal August 2016
Scaling up genetic circuit design for cellular computing: advances and prospects journal October 2018
Converting a Periplasmic Binding Protein into a Synthetic Biosensing Switch through Domain Insertion journal January 2019
A progesterone biosensor derived from microbial screening journal March 2020
Positive-feedback, ratiometric biosensor expression improves high-throughput metabolite-producer screening efficiency in yeast journal January 2017
Crosstalk between transcription and metabolism: how much enzyme is enough for a cell?: Crosstalk between transcription and metabolism journal August 2017
Evolution-guided engineering of small-molecule biosensors journal November 2019
A load driver device for engineering modularity in biological networks journal November 2014
Journey to the center of the protein: allostery from multitemperature multiconformer X-ray crystallography journal January 2019
Parallel Screening for Rapid Identification of Orthogonal Bioluminescent Tools journal November 2017
Structural hierarchy controlling dimerization and target DNA recognition in the AHR transcriptional complex journal April 2017
Computational design of a modular protein sense-response system journal November 2019
De novo design of programmable inducible promoters journal September 2019
Archimedes’ principle for characterisation of recombinant whole cell biocatalysts text January 2018
Computational redesign of the Escherichia coli ribose-binding protein ligand binding pocket for 1,3-cyclohexanediol and cyclohexanol journal November 2019
DNA-based memory devices for recording cellular events journal September 2018
Directed evolution of the PcaV allosteric transcription factor to generate a biosensor for aromatic aldehydes journal November 2019
Quorum-sensing based small RNA regulation for dynamic and tuneable gene expression journal August 2019
Phosphatase activity tunes two-component system sensor detection threshold journal April 2018
Riboregulated toehold-gated gRNA for programmable CRISPR–Cas9 function journal December 2018
Synthetic addiction extends the productive life time of engineered Escherichia coli populations journal February 2018
SensiPath: computer-aided design of sensing-enabling metabolic pathways journal April 2016
Assessing glycolytic flux alterations resulting from genetic perturbations in E. coli using a biosensor journal July 2017
Programmable T7-based synthetic transcription factors journal August 2018
Design of an allosterically modulated doxycycline and doxorubicin drug-binding protein journal May 2018
Binary addition in a living cell based on riboregulation journal July 2018
Next-generation biocontainment systems for engineered organisms journal May 2018
Directing evolution: the next revolution in drug discovery? journal September 2017
Genetically encoded biosensors for lignocellulose valorization journal October 2019
Tailor-made transcriptional biosensors for optimizing microbial cell factories journal November 2016
Synthetic Biology-The Synthesis of Biology journal April 2017
Lighting up yeast cell factories by transcription factor-based biosensors journal September 2017
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Overcoming genetic heterogeneity in industrial fermentations journal July 2019
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Structural and functional analyses of the cellulase transcription regulator CelR journal August 2018
Dynamic metabolic control: towards precision engineering of metabolism journal January 2018
A paper-based, cell-free biosensor system for the detection of heavy metals and date rape drugs journal March 2019
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