Imperial College Centre for Synthetic Biology, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Dec 2;21(23):9185. doi: 10.3390/ijms21239185.
Synthetic biology is an advanced form of genetic manipulation that applies the principles of modularity and engineering design to reprogram cells by changing their DNA. Over the last decade, synthetic biology has begun to be applied to bacteria that naturally produce biomaterials, in order to boost material production, change material properties and to add new functionalities to the resulting material. Recent work has used synthetic biology to engineer several strains; bacteria that naturally secrete large amounts of the versatile and promising material bacterial cellulose (BC). In this review, we summarize how genetic engineering, metabolic engineering and now synthetic biology have been used in strains to alter BC, improve its production and begin to add new functionalities into this easy-to-grow material. As well as describing the milestone advances, we also look forward to what will come next from engineering bacterial cellulose by synthetic biology.
合成生物学是一种高级的基因操作形式，它通过改变细胞的 DNA 来应用模块化和工程设计的原理来重新编程细胞。在过去的十年中，合成生物学开始应用于天然产生生物材料的细菌，以提高材料的产量，改变材料的性质，并为得到的材料添加新的功能。最近的工作利用合成生物学对几种菌株进行了工程改造；这些细菌能够大量分泌用途广泛且很有前景的材料——细菌纤维素（BC）。在这篇综述中，我们总结了遗传工程、代谢工程，以及现在的合成生物学是如何在菌株中被用来改变 BC、提高其产量，并开始为这种易于生长的材料添加新的功能。除了描述里程碑式的进展外，我们还展望了通过合成生物学对细菌纤维素进行工程改造的下一步发展。
