Institute of Molecular Biosciences, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Max-von-Laue Straße 9, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
FEBS Lett. 2012 Jul 16;586(15):2076-83. doi: 10.1016/j.febslet.2012.02.038. Epub 2012 Feb 28.
Riboswitches are natural RNA-based genetic switches that sense small-molecule metabolites and regulate in response the expression of the corresponding metabolic genes. Within the last years, several engineered riboswitches have been developed that act on various stages of gene expression. These switches can be engineered to respond to any ligand of choice and are therefore of great interest for synthetic biology. In this review, we present an overview of engineered riboswitches and discuss their application in conditional gene expression systems. We will provide structural and mechanistic insights and point out problems and recent trends in the development of engineered riboswitches.
Riboswitches 是基于 RNA 的天然遗传开关，可感应小分子代谢物，并根据相应代谢基因的表达情况进行调节。在过去的几年中，已经开发出了几种针对基因表达各个阶段的工程化 riboswitches。这些开关可以被设计成响应任何所需配体，因此它们在合成生物学中具有很大的兴趣。在这篇综述中，我们介绍了工程化 riboswitches 的概述，并讨论了它们在条件基因表达系统中的应用。我们将提供结构和机制方面的见解，并指出工程化 riboswitches 发展中存在的问题和最新趋势。
