Denton Jai A, Gokhale Chaitanya S
Genomics and Regulatory Systems Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Onna-son 904-0412, Japan.
Research Group for Theoretical models of Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, 24304 Plön, Germany.
Life (Basel). 2019 Jan 28;9(1):15. doi: 10.3390/life9010015.
Ecosystems are complex networks of interacting individuals co-evolving with their environment. As such, changes to an interaction can influence the whole ecosystem. However, to predict the outcome of these changes, considerable understanding of processes driving the system is required. Synthetic biology provides powerful tools to aid this understanding, but these developments also allow us to change specific interactions. Of particular interest is the ecological importance of mutualism, a subset of cooperative interactions. Mutualism occurs when individuals of different species provide a reciprocal fitness benefit. We review available experimental techniques of synthetic biology focused on engineered synthetic mutualistic systems. Components of these systems have defined interactions that can be altered to model naturally occurring relationships. Integrations between experimental systems and theoretical models, each informing the use or development of the other, allow predictions to be made about the nature of complex relationships. The predictions range from stability of microbial communities in extreme environments to the collapse of ecosystems due to dangerous levels of human intervention. With such caveats, we evaluate the promise of synthetic biology from the perspective of ethics and laws regarding biological alterations, whether on Earth or beyond. Just because we are able to change something, should we?
生态系统是由与环境共同进化的相互作用的个体组成的复杂网络。因此，相互作用的变化会影响整个生态系统。然而，要预测这些变化的结果，就需要对驱动该系统的过程有相当深入的了解。合成生物学提供了强大的工具来帮助实现这种理解，但这些进展也使我们能够改变特定的相互作用。特别令人感兴趣的是互利共生的生态重要性，它是合作相互作用的一个子集。当不同物种的个体相互提供适应性益处时，就会发生互利共生。我们回顾了合成生物学中专注于工程化合成互利共生系统的现有实验技术。这些系统的组件具有可定义的相互作用，可以改变这些相互作用以模拟自然发生的关系。实验系统与理论模型之间的整合，彼此相互为对方的使用或发展提供信息，从而能够对复杂关系的性质进行预测。这些预测范围从极端环境中微生物群落的稳定性到由于人类干预达到危险程度而导致的生态系统崩溃。考虑到这些警示，我们从关于生物改变的伦理和法律角度评估合成生物学的前景，无论这种改变是在地球上还是在地球之外。仅仅因为我们能够改变某些事物，我们就应该这样做吗？
