A Novel Biocontainment Strategy Makes Bacterial Growth and Survival Dependent on Phosphite.

ABSTRACT: There is a growing demand to develop biocontainment strategies that prevent unintended proliferation of genetically modified organisms in the open environment. We found that the hypophosphite (H₃PO₂, HPt) transporter HtxBCDE from Pseudomonas stutzeri WM88 was also capable of transporting phosphite (H₃PO₃, Pt) but not phosphate (H₃PO₄, Pi), suggesting the potential for engineering a Pt/HPt-dependent bacterial strain as a biocontainment strategy. We disrupted all Pi and organic Pi transporters in an Escherichia coli strain expressing HtxABCDE and a Pt dehydrogenase, leaving Pt/HPt uptake and oxidation as the only means to obtain Pi. Challenge on non-permissive growth medium revealed that no escape mutants appeared for at least

SUBMITTER: Hirota R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5357788 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature