Renda Brian A, Hammerling Michael J, Barrick Jeffrey E
Department of Molecular Biosciences, Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA.
Mol Biosyst. 2014 Jul;10(7):1668-78. doi: 10.1039/c3mb70606k. Epub 2014 Feb 21.
The field of synthetic biology seeks to engineer reliable and predictable behaviors in organisms from collections of standardized genetic parts. However, unlike other types of machines, genetically encoded biological systems are prone to changes in their designed sequences due to mutations in their DNA sequences after these devices are constructed and deployed. Thus, biological engineering efforts can be confounded by undesired evolution that rapidly breaks the functions of parts and systems, particularly when they are costly to the host cell to maintain. Here, we explain the fundamental properties that determine the evolvability of biological systems. Then, we use this framework to review current efforts to engineer the DNA sequences that encode synthetic biology devices and the genomes of their microbial hosts to reduce their ability to evolve and therefore increase their genetic reliability so that they maintain their intended functions over longer timescales.
合成生物学领域致力于通过标准化遗传元件的组合来设计生物体中可靠且可预测的行为。然而,与其他类型的机器不同,在构建和部署这些装置后,由于DNA序列中的突变,基因编码的生物系统容易出现设计序列的变化。因此,生物工程的努力可能会因意外的进化而受到干扰,这种进化会迅速破坏元件和系统的功能,尤其是当它们对宿主细胞的维持成本很高时。在这里,我们解释决定生物系统进化能力的基本特性。然后,我们利用这个框架来回顾当前为设计编码合成生物学装置的DNA序列及其微生物宿主的基因组所做的努力,以降低它们的进化能力,从而提高它们的遗传可靠性,使它们在更长的时间尺度上保持预期的功能。