Berkeley Lab Scientists Believe Biomanufacturing a Key to Long-term Manned Space Missions
Does synthetic biology hold the key to manned space exploration of the Moon and Mars? Berkeley Lab researchers have used synthetic biology to produce an inexpensive and reliable microbial-based alternative to the world’s most effective anti-malaria drug, and to develop clean, green and sustainable alternatives to gasoline, diesel and jet fuels. In the future, synthetic biology could also be used to make manned space missions more practical. (more…)
Berkeley Lab Researchers Find Little Correlation Between Microbial Gene Expression and Environmental Conditions in the Laboratory
A new study challenges the orthodoxy of microbiology, which holds that in response to environmental changes, bacterial genes will boost production of needed proteins and decrease production of those that aren’t. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) found that for bacteria in the laboratory there was little evidence of adaptive genetic response. In fact, most bacterial genes appear to be regulated by signals unrelated to their function.
“Gene regulation in bacteria is usually described as an adaptive response to an environmental change so that genes are expressed only when they are required, but we’ve shown that in the laboratory gene regulation is often maladaptive,” says Adam Arkin, a systems and synthetic biologist and director of Berkeley Lab’s Physical Biosciences Division. “From our results, we propose that most bacterial genes are under indirect control, which means their expression is a response to signals not directly related to their function, and that their regulatory mechanisms perform poorly in the artificial conditions of a laboratory.” (more…)
Berkeley Lab Researchers Develop New Tool for Making Genetic Engineering of Microbial Circuits Reliably Predictable
Synthetic biology is the latest and most advanced phase of genetic engineering, holding great promise for helping to solve some of the world’s most intractable problems, including the sustainable production of energy fuels and critical medical drugs, and the safe removal of toxic and radioactive waste from the environment. However, for synthetic biology to reach its promise, the design and construction of biological systems must be as predictable as the assembly of computer hardware.
An important step towards attaining a higher degree of predictability in synthetic biology has been taken by a group of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) under the leadership of computational biologist Adam Arkin. Arkin and his team have developed an “adaptor” that makes the genetic engineering of microbial components substantially easier and more predictable by converting regulators of translation into regulators of transcription in Escherichia coli. Transcription and translation make up the two-step process by which the coded instructions of genes are used to synthesize proteins. (more…)
Critical genetic secrets of a bacterium that holds potential for removing toxic and radioactive waste from the environment have been revealed in a study by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The researchers have provided the first ever map of the genes that determine how these bacteria interact with their surrounding environment.
“Knowing how bacteria respond to environmental changes is crucial to our understanding of how their physiology tracks with consequences that are both good, such as bioremediation, and bad, such as biofouling,” says Aindrila Mukhopadhyay, a chemist with Berkeley Lab’s Physical Biosciences Division, who led this research. “We have reported the first systematic mapping of the genes in a sulfate-reducing bacterium – Desulfovibrio vulgaris – that regulate the mechanisms by which the bacteria perceive and respond to environmental signals.” (more…)
