News Section | Genetics
‘Cyborg’ yeast genes may help produce biofuel from microbes
Scientists have formed a “feedback loop” between a computer and a common yeast to precisely control the switching on and off of specific genes.
The computer controlled flashes of light to start and stop this gene expression, “learning” how to reach and maintain a set value.
The groundbreaking approach that appeared in Nature Biotechnology could help future efforts to control biological processes, such as the production of biofuel from microbes.
“The neat thing about this is that there are many people who have tried to do things like this by, for example, coding in the cell itself a synthetic circuit, putting genes and mechanisms in the cell,” senior author John Lygeros, of the Automatic Control Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich told THE BBC.
“That’s had limited success up to now,” he stated.
Prof Lygeros and his colleagues started with the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae – a well-studied strain of yeast familiar since ancient times in brewing and baking.
Previous study had found that when S. cerevisiae is exposed to light, a molecule called phytochrome within it can switch forms; red light converts it to an “active form” and a deeper red converts it back.
The activity of the phytochrome can start or stop the genetic machinery that results in the production of a given protein.
The team used this trick to ensure that when the yeast was producing that protein – corresponding to the gene being switched on – it could be tracked by using a “reporter” molecule that itself gives off light in a process called fluorescence.
In that way, the team had a full loop of control: upon shining red light in, they could track how much a population of yeast cells was expressing the gene, and apply the deeper red to curb that gene expression.
The team developed a computer model to track how long each burst of light should take to precisely maintain a given amount of gene expression, allowing it to control the light tightly in a feedback loop.
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