The impact of organizational strategy on performance of in vitro biosynthesis reactions
Abstract
In resource-limited and far-forward regions, it can be difficult to deliver supplies such as medicine, food, and materials. Moreover, the ability to sense potentially harmful chemicals and toxic agents in such regions can save lives. Synthetic biology-based systems offer the flexibility and power to address all of these needs, but issues remain. One primary issue facing biological engineering efforts is to control precisely where biochemical reactions take place to achieve desired products at relevant levels. Nature makes use of compartmentalization strategies, including the bacterial organelles known as microcompartments, to accomplish this spatial control and achieve outcomes unattainable without such organization. A particularly exciting area is to repurpose these natural microcompartments to direct outcomes for engineered systems, but it is not yet clear which biological reactions will benefit from this strategy. This proposal seeks to use the propanediol utilization microcompartment system with two model reaction pathways to 1) quantify the impact of compartmentalization on titer, yield, and product profiles; 2) explore the role of compartmentalized cofactor regeneration on the reaction performance, and 3) compare compartmentalization to other colocalization strategies. The studies, if successful, will experimentally determine the biochemical benefits of spatial organization of metabolic pathways and enable the design of spatiotemporal organization in bioengineered systems. These results can be translated to the design of biosensors and to engineer biomanufacturing systems to make desired products such as antibiotics.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- May 06, 2019
- Source ID
- W911NF1910298
Entities
People
- Danielle Tullman-Ercek
Organizations
- Army Contracting Command
- Northwestern University
- United States Army