State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, Chaoyang, 100029, China.
College of Engineering, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30605, USA.
Biotechnol J. 2020 Jun;15(6):e1900360. doi: 10.1002/biot.201900360. Epub 2020 Mar 12.
Quorum sensing (QS) is a ubiquitous cell-cell communication mechanism in microbes that coordinates population-level cell behaviors, such as biofilm production, virulence, swarming motility, and bacterial persistence. Efforts to engineer QS systems to take part in metabolic network regulation represent a promising strategy for synthetic biology and pathway engineering. Recently, design, construction, and implementation of QS circuits for programmed control of bacterial phenotypes and metabolic pathways have gained much attention, but have not been reviewed recently. In this article, the architectural organizations and genetic contributions of the naturally occurring QS components to understand the mechanisms are summarized. Then, the most recent progress in application of QS toolkits to develop synthetic networks for novel cell behaviors creation and metabolic pathway engineering is highlighted. The current challenges in large-scale application of these QS circuits in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering fields are discussed and future perspectives for further engineering efforts are provided.
群体感应（QS）是微生物中一种普遍存在的细胞间通讯机制，它协调群体水平的细胞行为，如生物膜的产生、毒力、群集运动和细菌的持久性。将 QS 系统工程化以参与代谢网络调节代表了合成生物学和途径工程的一个有前途的策略。最近，设计、构建和实施 QS 电路以实现对细菌表型和代谢途径的编程控制引起了广泛关注，但最近尚未进行综述。在本文中，总结了天然 QS 组件的结构组织和遗传贡献，以了解其机制。然后，重点介绍了 QS 工具包在创建新型细胞行为和代谢途径工程方面的最新应用进展。讨论了这些 QS 电路在合成生物学和代谢工程领域大规模应用的当前挑战，并为进一步的工程努力提供了未来的展望。
