Adaptive evolution of genomically recoded Escherichia coli
Abstract
Efforts are underway to construct several recoded genomes anticipated to exhibit multivirus resistance, enhanced nonstandard amino acid (nsAA) incorporation, and capability for synthetic biocontainment. Although our laboratory pioneered the first genomically recoded organism (Escherichia colistrain C321.ΔA), its fitness is far lower than that of its nonrecoded ancestor, particularly in defined media. This fitness deficit severely limits its utility for nsAA-linked applications requiring defined media, such as live cell imaging, metabolic engineering, and industrial-scale protein production. Here, we introduce adaptive evolution of C321.ΔA for more than 1,000 generations in independent replicate populations grown in glucose minimal media. Evolved recoded populations significantly exceeded the growth rates of both the ancestral C321.ΔA and nonrecoded strains. We used next-generation sequencing to identify genes mutated in multiple independent populations, and we reconstructed individual alleles in ancestral strains via multiplex automatable genome engineering (MAGE) to quantify their effects on fitness. Several selective mutations occurred only in recoded evolved populations, some of which are associated with altering the translation apparatus in response to recoding, whereas others are not apparently associated with recoding, but instead correct for off-target mutations that occurred during initial genome engineering. This work demonstrates that laboratory evolution can be applied after engineering of recodedmore »
- Authors:
-
- Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115,
- Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); Amazon Web Services Cloud Credits for Research Program
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1420357
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1527125
- Grant/Contract Number:
- FG02-02ER63445
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Journal Volume: 115 Journal Issue: 12; Journal ID: ISSN 0027-8424
- Publisher:
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES; adaptive evolution; recoded genome; synthetic biology; genetic code expansion; nonstandard amino acids
Citation Formats
Wannier, Timothy M., Kunjapur, Aditya M., Rice, Daniel P., McDonald, Michael J., Desai, Michael M., and Church, George M. Adaptive evolution of genomically recoded Escherichia coli. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.1073/pnas.1715530115.
Wannier, Timothy M., Kunjapur, Aditya M., Rice, Daniel P., McDonald, Michael J., Desai, Michael M., & Church, George M. Adaptive evolution of genomically recoded Escherichia coli. United States. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1715530115
Wannier, Timothy M., Kunjapur, Aditya M., Rice, Daniel P., McDonald, Michael J., Desai, Michael M., and Church, George M. Tue .
"Adaptive evolution of genomically recoded Escherichia coli". United States. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1715530115.
@article{osti_1420357,
title = {Adaptive evolution of genomically recoded Escherichia coli},
author = {Wannier, Timothy M. and Kunjapur, Aditya M. and Rice, Daniel P. and McDonald, Michael J. and Desai, Michael M. and Church, George M.},
abstractNote = {Efforts are underway to construct several recoded genomes anticipated to exhibit multivirus resistance, enhanced nonstandard amino acid (nsAA) incorporation, and capability for synthetic biocontainment. Although our laboratory pioneered the first genomically recoded organism (Escherichia colistrain C321.ΔA), its fitness is far lower than that of its nonrecoded ancestor, particularly in defined media. This fitness deficit severely limits its utility for nsAA-linked applications requiring defined media, such as live cell imaging, metabolic engineering, and industrial-scale protein production. Here, we introduce adaptive evolution of C321.ΔA for more than 1,000 generations in independent replicate populations grown in glucose minimal media. Evolved recoded populations significantly exceeded the growth rates of both the ancestral C321.ΔA and nonrecoded strains. We used next-generation sequencing to identify genes mutated in multiple independent populations, and we reconstructed individual alleles in ancestral strains via multiplex automatable genome engineering (MAGE) to quantify their effects on fitness. Several selective mutations occurred only in recoded evolved populations, some of which are associated with altering the translation apparatus in response to recoding, whereas others are not apparently associated with recoding, but instead correct for off-target mutations that occurred during initial genome engineering. This work demonstrates that laboratory evolution can be applied after engineering of recoded genomes to streamline fitness recovery compared with application of additional targeted engineering strategies that may introduce further unintended mutations. In doing so, we provide the most comprehensive insight to date into the physiology of the commonly used C321.ΔA strain.},
doi = {10.1073/pnas.1715530115},
journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America},
number = 12,
volume = 115,
place = {United States},
year = {2018},
month = {2}
}
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1715530115
Web of Science
Figures / Tables:

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