Rapid cell-free forward engineering of novel genetic ring oscillators

  1. Henrike Niederholtmeyer
  2. Zachary Sun
  3. Yutaka Hori
  4. Enoch Yeung
  5. Amanda Verpoorte
  6. Richard M Murray
  7. Sebastian J Maerkl  Is a corresponding author
  1. École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
  2. California Institute of Technology, United States

Abstract

While complex dynamic biological networks control gene expression in all living organisms, the forward engineering of comparable synthetic networks remains challenging. The current paradigm of characterizing synthetic networks in cells results in lengthy design-build-test cycles, minimal data collection, and poor quantitative characterization. Cell-free systems are appealing alternative environments, but it remains questionable whether biological networks behave similarly in cell-free systems and in cells. We characterized in a cell-free system the 'repressilator,' a three-node synthetic oscillator. We then engineered novel three, four, and five-gene ring architectures, from characterization of circuit components to rapid analysis of complete networks. When implemented in cells, our novel 3-node networks produced population-wide synchronized oscillations and 95% of 5-node oscillator cells oscillated for up to 72 hours. Oscillation periods in cells matched the cell-free system results for all networks tested. An alternate forward engineering paradigm using cell-free systems can thus accurately capture cellular behavior.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Henrike Niederholtmeyer

    Institute of Bioengineering, School of Engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Zachary Sun

    Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Yutaka Hori

    Division of Engineering and Applied Science, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Enoch Yeung

    Division of Engineering and Applied Science, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Amanda Verpoorte

    Institute of Bioengineering, School of Engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Richard M Murray

    Division of Biology and Bioengineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Sebastian J Maerkl

    Institute of Bioengineering, School of Engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
    For correspondence
    sebastian.maerkl@epfl.ch
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Copyright

© 2015, Niederholtmeyer et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 7,490
    views
  • 1,722
    downloads
  • 216
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Citations by DOI

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Henrike Niederholtmeyer
  2. Zachary Sun
  3. Yutaka Hori
  4. Enoch Yeung
  5. Amanda Verpoorte
  6. Richard M Murray
  7. Sebastian J Maerkl
(2015)
Rapid cell-free forward engineering of novel genetic ring oscillators
eLife 4:e09771.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.09771

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.09771