Novel electronically controlled gene expression tool

Researchers led by experts from Imperial College London have developed a new way to precisely alter gene expression by donating and removing electrons

This could help control reactions in biomedical implants or large "bioreactors" in the body that can produce drugs and other useful compounds

Gene expression is the process by which genes are "activated" and produce new molecules and other downstream effects in the cell

The use of electrical currents to control gene expression has opened up a new area of ​​research, and while such electrogenic systems have been identified before, their lack of precision in the presence or absence of electrical signals limits their application

The research is published today in the journal Science Advances

Co-author Joshua Lawrence said: "A major problem with synthetic biology is that it is difficult to control biological systems the way we control artificial systems

"As part of this project, we have created tools that will allow researchers to use electrical signals to control the gene expression and behavior of cells without any loss of performance

"We hope that by further developing these tools, we can really control biological systems with the flick of a switch

In this study, the PsoxS promoter was redesigned to be more responsive to electrical stimulation provided by electron transfer

Until now, electrical stimulation of gene expression has been difficult in the presence of oxygen, limiting its real-life applications

Biomedical implants typically use a stimulus to produce a certain drug or hormone in the body

For large bioreactors (sometimes the size of buildings) that produce chemicals, drugs or fuels, large cultures are difficult to penetrate with light, and feeding with chemical inducers is expensive, so the transport of electrons provides a solution

In their proof-of-concept study, the researchers extracted a "luminescent" protein from the jellyfish and used a new promoter and electrons to induce its expression in bacteria, making the cell glow only when the system was "on

Dr Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro, Lecturer at Imperial College London and head of the RLAlab research group, said: "This project started as an idea for Blue Sky during a synthetic biology student competition

"Thanks to a strong dedication, years of work and a huge team effort, the original idea has become a reality, and now we have all kinds of new technologies to harness electricity to control the fate of batteries

The team is currently planning to develop different promoters to induce different downstream factors, so that simultaneous electrical signals can express different genes independently of each other

Joshua M.
Lawrence, Yutong Yin, Paolo Bombelli, Alberto Scarampi, Marko Storch, Laura T.
Wey, Alicia Climent-Catala, Geoff S.
Baldwin, Danny O’Hare, Christopher J.
Howe, Jenny Z.
Zhang, Thomas E.
Ouldridge, Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro.
Synthetic biology and bioelectrochemical tools for electrogenetic system engineering .
Science Advances , 2022; 8 (18)