Chapter 2 Constraints in the Design of the Synthetic Bacterial Chassis

Publication date: 2013 Source:Methods in Microbiology, Volume 40 Author(s): Antoine Danchin , Agnieszka Sekowska Synthetic biology is commonly viewed as a research and engineering domain of biology where a human-designed genetic program is synthesised and transplanted into a relevant cell type from an extant organism. The host cell’s ability to reproduce and express the program is taken for granted. By contrast, we discuss here the hierarchy of engineering functions that need to rule the host cell, using the top-down methodology of designer functional analysis. With the view that the final synthetic construct behaves as a cell factory, we analyse the helper functions that allow it to fulfil its production human-designed goal. This scenario combines three major helper functions: compartmentalisation (defining an inside and an outside, and shaping), information transfer (defining a program, with relevant hardware to support the corresponding memory and memory transfers and expression), and metabolism (the process that selects basic building blocks from the environment, constructs the cell’s components, and manages energy, releasing waste in the environment). Relevant downstream functions are identified and discussed in each case, focusing on functions that do not immediately come to the naïve eye.
Source: Methods in Microbiology - Category: Microbiology Source Type: research