Programming Gene Expression in Multicellular Organisms for Physiology Modulation Through Engineered Bacteria

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2021 May 12

PMID 33976154

Citations 5

Authors

Baizhen Gao

Qing Sun

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

A central goal of synthetic biology is to predictably and efficiently reprogram living systems to perform computations and carry out specific biological tasks. Although there have been many advances in the bio-computational design of living systems, these advances have mainly been applied to microorganisms or cell lines; programming animal physiology remains challenging for synthetic biology because of the system complexity. Here, we present a bacteria-animal symbiont system in which engineered bacteria recognize external signals and modulate animal gene expression, twitching phenotype, and fat metabolism through RNA interference toward gfp, sbp-1, and unc-22 gene in C. elegans. By using genetic circuits in bacteria to control these RNA expressions, we are able to program the physiology of the model animal Caenorhabditis elegans with logic gates. We anticipate that engineered bacteria can be used more extensively to program animal physiology for agricultural, therapeutic, and basic science applications.

Citing Articles

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Physiochemically and Genetically Engineered Bacteria: Instructive Design Principles and Diverse Applications.

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Engineering bacterial warriors: harnessing microbes to modulate animal physiology.

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The dogma of the sterile uterus revisited: does microbial seeding occur during fetal life in humans and animals?.

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