Start-Stop Assembly: a functionally scarless DNA assembly system optimized for metabolic engineering.

DNA assembly allows individual DNA constructs or libraries to be assembled quickly and reliably. Most methods are either: (i) Modular, easily scalable and suitable for combinatorial assembly, but leave undesirable 'scar' sequences; or (ii) bespoke (non-modular), scarless but less suitable for construction of combinatorial libraries. Both have limitations for metabolic engineering. To overcome this trade-off we devised Start-Stop Assembly, a multi-part, modular DNA assembly method which is both functionally scarless and suitable for combinatorial assembly. Crucially, 3 bp overhangs corresponding to start and stop codons are used to assemble coding sequences into expression units, avoiding scars at sensitive coding sequence boundaries. Building on this concept, a complete DNA assembly framework was designed and implemented, allowing assembly of up to 15 genes from up to 60 parts (or mixtures); monocistronic, operon-based or hybrid configurations; and a new streamlined assembly hierarchy minimizing the number of vectors. Only one destination vector is required per organism, reflecting our optimization of the system for metabolic engineering in diverse organisms. Metabolic engineering using Start-Stop Assembly was demonstrated by combinatorial assembly of carotenoid pathways in Escherichia coli resulting in a wide range of carotenoid production and colony size phenotypes indicating the intended exploration of design space.

Recombinant expression and characterisation of the oxygen-sensitive 2-enoate reductase from Clostridium sporogenes.

'Ene'-reductases have attracted significant attention for the preparation of chemical intermediates and biologically active products. To date, research has been focussed primarily on Old Yellow Enzyme-like proteins, due to their ease of handling, whereas 2-enoate reductases from clostridia have received much less attention, because of their oxygen sensitivity and a lack of suitable expression systems. A hypothetical 2-enoate reductase gene, fldZ, was identified in Clostridium sporogenes DSM 795. The encoded protein shares a high degree of homology to clostridial FMN- and FAD-dependent 2-enoate reductases, including the cinnamic acid reductase proposed to be involved in amino acid metabolism in proteolytic clostridia. The gene was cloned and overexpressed in Escherichia coli. Successful expression depended on the use of strictly anaerobic conditions for both growth and enzyme preparation, since FldZ was oxygen-sensitive. The enzyme reduced aromatic enoates, such as cinnamic acid or p-coumaric acid, but not short chain unsaturated aliphatic acids. The ß,ß-disubstituted nitroalkene, (E)-1-nitro-2-phenylpropene, was reduced to enantiopure (R)-1-nitro-2-phenylpropane with a yield of 90 %. By contrast, the α,ß-disubstituted nitroalkene, (E)-2-nitro-1-phenylpropene, was reduced with a moderate yield of 56 % and poor enantioselectivity (16 % ee for (S)-2-nitro-1-phenylpropane). The availability of an expression system for this recombinant clostridial 2-enoate reductase will facilitate future characterisation of this unusual class of 'ene'-reductases, and expand the biocatalytic toolbox available for enantioselective hydrogenation of carbon-carbon double bonds.

Review of NAD(P)H-dependent oxidoreductases: Properties, engineering and application.

NAD(P)H-dependent oxidoreductases catalyze the reduction or oxidation of a substrate coupled to the oxidation or reduction, respectively, of a nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide cofactor NAD(P)H or NAD(P)+. NAD(P)H-dependent oxidoreductases catalyze a large variety of reactions and play a pivotal role in many central metabolic pathways. Due to the high activity, regiospecificity and stereospecificity with which they catalyze redox reactions, they have been used as key components in a wide range of applications, including substrate utilization, the synthesis of chemicals, biodegradation and detoxification. There is great interest in tailoring NAD(P)H-dependent oxidoreductases to make them more suitable for particular applications. Here, we review the main properties and classes of NAD(P)H-dependent oxidoreductases, the types of reactions they catalyze, some of the main protein engineering techniques used to modify their properties and some interesting examples of their modification and application.

CpPosNeg: A positive-negative selection strategy allowing multiple cycles of marker-free engineering of the Chlamydomonas plastome.

The chloroplast represents an attractive compartment for light-driven biosynthesis of recombinant products, and advanced synthetic biology tools are available for engineering the chloroplast genome ( = plastome) of several algal and plant species. However, producing commercial lines will likely require several plastome manipulations. This presents issues with respect to selectable markers, since there are a limited number available, they can be used only once in a serial engineering strategy, and it is undesirable to retain marker genes for antibiotic resistance in the final transplastome. To address these problems, we have designed a rapid iterative selection system, known as CpPosNeg, for the green microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii that allows creation of marker-free transformants starting from wild-type strains. The system employs a dual marker encoding a fusion protein of E. coli aminoglycoside adenyltransferase (AadA: conferring spectinomycin resistance) and a variant of E. coli cytosine deaminase (CodA: conferring sensitivity to 5-fluorocytosine). Initial selection on spectinomycin allows stable transformants to be established and driven to homoplasmy. Subsequent selection on 5-fluorocytosine results in rapid loss of the dual marker through intramolecular recombination between the 3'UTR of the marker and the 3'UTR of the introduced transgene. We demonstrate the versatility of the CpPosNeg system by serial introduction of reporter genes into the plastome.

Transcriptional control of KCNQ channel genes and the regulation of neuronal excitability.

Regulation of the resting membrane potential and the repolarization of neurons are important in regulating neuronal excitability. The potassium channel subunits Kv7.2 and Kv7.3 play a key role in stabilizing neuronal activity. Mutations in KCNQ2 and KCNQ3, the genes encoding Kv7.2 and Kv7.3, cause a neonatal form of epilepsy, and activators of these channels have been identified as novel antiepileptics and analgesics. Despite the observations that regulation of these subunits has profound effects on neuronal function, almost nothing is known about the mechanisms responsible for controlling appropriate expression levels. Here we identify two mechanisms responsible for regulating KCNQ2 and KCNQ3 mRNA levels. We show that the transcription factor Sp1 activates expression of both KCNQ2 and KCNQ3, whereas the transcriptional repressor REST (repressor element 1-silencing transcription factor) represses expression of both of these genes. Furthermore, we show that transcriptional regulation of KCNQ genes is mirrored by the correlated changes in M-current density and excitability of native sensory neurons. We propose that these mechanisms are important in the control of excitability of neurons and may have implications in seizure activity and pain.

The Algal Chloroplast as a Testbed for Synthetic Biology Designs Aimed at Radically Rewiring Plant Metabolism.

Sustainable and economically viable support for an ever-increasing global population requires a paradigm shift in agricultural productivity, including the application of biotechnology to generate future crop plants. Current genetic engineering approaches aimed at enhancing the photosynthetic efficiency or composition of the harvested tissues involve relatively simple manipulations of endogenous metabolism. However, radical rewiring of central metabolism using new-to-nature pathways, so-called "synthetic metabolism", may be needed to really bring about significant step changes. In many cases, this will require re-programming the metabolism of the chloroplast, or other plastids in non-green tissues, through a combination of chloroplast and nuclear engineering. However, current technologies for sophisticated chloroplast engineering ("transplastomics") of plants are limited to just a handful of species. Moreover, the testing of metabolic rewiring in the chloroplast of plant models is often impractical given their obligate phototrophy, the extended time needed to create stable non-chimeric transplastomic lines, and the technical challenges associated with regeneration of whole plants. In contrast, the unicellular green alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a facultative heterotroph that allows for extensive modification of chloroplast function, including non-photosynthetic designs. Moreover, chloroplast engineering in C. reinhardtii is facile, with the ability to generate novel lines in a matter of weeks, and a well-defined molecular toolbox allows for rapid iterations of the "Design-Build-Test-Learn" (DBTL) cycle of modern synthetic biology approaches. The recent development of combinatorial DNA assembly pipelines for designing and building transgene clusters, simple methods for marker-free delivery of these clusters into the chloroplast genome, and the pre-existing wealth of knowledge regarding chloroplast gene expression and regulation in C. reinhardtii further adds to the versatility of transplastomics using this organism. Herein, we review the inherent advantages of the algal chloroplast as a simple and tractable testbed for metabolic engineering designs, which could then be implemented in higher plants.

Exploring the Impact of Terminators on Transgene Expression in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii with a Synthetic Biology Approach.

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii has many attractive features for use as a model organism for both fundamental studies and as a biotechnological platform. Nonetheless, despite the many molecular tools and resources that have been developed, there are challenges for its successful engineering, in particular to obtain reproducible and high levels of transgene expression. Here we describe a synthetic biology approach to screen several hundred independent transformants using standardised parts to explore different parameters that might affect transgene expression. We focused on terminators and, using a standardised workflow and quantitative outputs, tested 9 different elements representing three different size classes of native terminators to determine their ability to support high level expression of a GFP reporter gene. We found that the optimal size reflected the median size of element found in the C. reinhardtii genome. The behaviour of the terminator parts was similar with different promoters, in different host strains and with different transgenes. This approach is applicable to the systematic testing of other genetic elements, facilitating comparison to determine optimal transgene design.

Stringency of Synthetic Promoter Sequences in Clostridium Revealed and Circumvented by Tuning Promoter Library Mutation Rates.

Collections of characterized promoters of different strengths are key resources for synthetic biology, but are not well established for many important organisms, including industrially relevant Clostridium spp. When generating promoters, reporter constructs are used to measure expression, but classical fluorescent reporter proteins are oxygen-dependent and hence inactive in anaerobic bacteria like Clostridium. We directly compared oxygen-independent reporters of different types in Clostridium acetobutylicum and found that glucuronidase (GusA) from E. coli performed best. Using GusA, a library of synthetic promoters was first generated by a typical approach entailing complete randomization of a constitutive thiolase gene promoter (Pthl) except for the consensus -35 and -10 elements. In each synthetic promoter, the chance of each degenerate position matching Pthl was 25%. Surprisingly, none of the tested synthetic promoters from this library were functional in C. acetobutylicum, even though they functioned as expected in E. coli. Next, instead of complete randomization, we specified lower promoter mutation rates using oligonucleotide primers synthesized using custom mixtures of nucleotides. Using these primers, two promoter libraries were constructed in which the chance of each degenerate position matching Pthl was 79% or 58%, instead of 25% as before. Synthetic promoters from these "stringent" libraries functioned well in C. acetobutylicum, covering a wide range of strengths. The promoters functioned similarly in the distantly related species Clostridium sporogenes, and allowed predictable metabolic engineering of C. acetobutylicum for acetoin production. Besides generating the desired promoters and demonstrating their useful properties, this work indicates an unexpected "stringency" of promoter sequences in Clostridium, not reported previously.

[The high diversity and regulation of plant water channels]. / Róznorodnosc i regulacja kanalów wodnych w swiecie roslin.

Membrane intrinsic proteins (MIPs) are a diverse class of integral membrane proteins that mediate the bi-directional flux of water (aquaporins), uncharged small solutes such as glycerol and/or gases across cellular membranes. The past year has brought significant advances in the characterization in plants of a large class this of water channel. MIPs have been identified in many single- and multi- cellular organisms. Aquaporins play important role in plant development and their adaptation to even changing environment. At the transcriptional level aquaporins have been up- or down-regulated in response to hormones, drought, salnity and light. Recent data indicate that plant aquaporin activity might be regulated by phosphorylation and intracellular protons. Novel mechanisms of regulation by hetero-tetramer formation or through control by reactive oxygen species and osmotic or hydrostatic pressure gradients is also discussed.