Engineering 'cell robots' for parallel and highly sensitive screening of biomolecules under in vivo conditions.

ABSTRACT: Cells are capable of rapid replication and performing tasks adaptively and ultra-sensitively and can be considered as cheap "biological-robots". Here we propose to engineer cells for screening biomolecules in parallel and with high sensitivity. Specifically, we place the biomolecule variants (library) on the bacterial phage M13. We then design cells to screen the library based on cell-phage interactions mediated by a specific intracellular signal change caused by the biomolecule of interest. For proof of concept, we used intracellular lysine concentration in E. coli as a signal to successfully screen variants of functional aspartate kinase III (AK-III) under in vivo conditions, a key enzyme in L-lysine biosynthesis which is strictly inhibited by L-lysine. Comparative studies with flow cyto

SUBMITTER: Song L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5680304 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature