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Project overview

We aim to transform protein expression in bacterial systems into an elegant, fast and affordable process. By eliminating routine use of expensive materials, this novel assay will utilize sustainable laboratory equipment and widespread His-Tag technology.

We propose an expression system induced by blue, green and red light, combined with subsequent temperature controlled autolysis of E. coli. The purification of the His-tagged protein of interest will be accomplished by an adaptor protein of our own design which binds the His-tag on one side and the surface of serological pipettes on the other. Two subsequent pipetting steps for washing and purification of the cell lysate will quickly elute the product.

Our system will provide expression and purification of Polymerase and Ligase, but will be easily expandable to any His-tagged protein needed by the modern molecular biologist.

About

Synthetic Biology can be an expensive discipline to conduct research in. Researchers need many kits, reagents and costly laboratory apparatus; all of which require an advanced infrastructure for biotechnology and chemistry. Especially in many developing countries it is hard to acquire the necessary equipment. Our goal is to reprogram a harmless laboratory strain of the E. coli in such a way that the preparation of commonly used proteins, like drugs and enzymes is controllable by light. To make this happen, we introduce genetic building blocks into the bacteria that are of our own design, or ordered from an open-source database. The project is meant to replace current chemical methods with the aim to make protein production simpler, cheaper and environmentally friendlier. Everything in nature is renewable and energetically optimized. Yet, in Synthetic Biology, as in most artificial environments, this efficient use of nature's own achievements can not be easily accomplished. Up to now, the production and extraction of a protein requires rather expensive equipment and chemicals, which can only be provided by a highly specialized high-tech industry. However, this is not the only possible option: nature itself works fine without such tools. That is why we wish to develop systems, which are in keeping with the natural image, making its functions available to us – without the additional use of expensive materials as much as possible. Our approach is based on the great advantage of living systems: self-reproduction. Ideally, most equipment needed for Molecular Biology could be covered by nature itself. In creating an organism that can be controlled as precisely and as simply as possible in the functions we try to achieve, we may gain direct access to nature’s own capabilities to aid us in research.

Who is the Lab in a Cell meant for?

Primarily, we aim to develop a biological toolkit to be used by scientists for research purposes. Furthermore, our method enables simple and cheap reproduction of our kit. In placing all our results in an open access database, we especially hope to reach scientists in places without a specialized SynBio industry, helping to improve the working situation on-site. The concept of our protein expression and purification mechanism is to be as independent as possible from high-tech infrastructure so it can be used in more remote areas of this world for research and diagnostic purposes, enabling scientists to work wherever it is required without a great increase in expenditure of resources.

From personal experience we know that in South America, for example, it can be very difficult to obtain materials necessary today, slowing down and complicating the exploration of the Amazonian ecosystems amongst other things that hinder research.

Our Lab in a Cell concept is not only by far simpler to handle than many current technologies, but also cheaper and easier to keep at hand for when needed. We aim for the functions of a synthetic biology lab to be provided by cells themselves, controlled with a natural method that is easily accessible for any researcher, like light for example. Everything that would be needed for the toolkit we have in mind could fit in a mere suitcase: pipettes and tips, bacterial samples, extracted and dried DNA, a small device for light induction or at least some colour filters. This idea could be developed further and modified for basically any cellular function we wish to use for our purposes.

references:
Tabor, J. J., Levskaya, A., & Voigt, C. A. (2011). Multichromatic control of gene expression in Escherichia coli. Journal of Molecular Biology, 405(2), 315-324. Elsevier Ltd. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21035461