ArticleMolecular systems biology2015
A synthetic growth switch based on controlled expression of RNA polymerase.
Article in Molecular systems biology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers.
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Who cites it
37 citing papers in PubMed, 92 citations in OpenAlex.
- Growth control as a central regulator for tuning the cellular context.Journal of biological engineering · 2026Article
- Evolutionary constraints on RNA polymerase gene positioning in the genome of fast-growing bacteria.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Synthetic Biology of Plants and Microbes for Agriculture, Environment, and Future Applications.Chemical reviews · 2026Review
- The ladder of regulatory stringency and balance: an application to the US FDA's regulation of bacterial live therapeutics.Gut microbes · 2025Review
- Unravelling the temporal dynamics of community functions in protists induced by treated wastewater exposure using metatranscriptomics.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Engineering Sequestration-Based Biomolecular Classifiers with Shared Resources.ACS synthetic biology · 2024Article
- How total mRNA influences cell growth.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Essential factors, advanced strategies, challenges, and approaches involved for efficient expression of recombinant proteins in Escherichia coli.Archives of microbiology · 2024Review
- Response and adaptation of the transcriptional heat shock response to pressure.Frontiers in microbiology · 2024Article
- Mapping temperature-sensitive mutations at a genome scale to engineer growth switches in Escherichia coli.Molecular systems biology · 2023Article
- A hybrid in silico/in-cell controller for microbial bioprocesses with process-model mismatch.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Chromosomal Position of Ribosomal Protein Genes Affects Long-Term Evolution of Vibrio cholerae.mBio · 2023Article
- Strategies for efficient production of recombinant proteins in Escherichia coli: alleviating the host burden and enhancing protein activity.Microbial cell factories · 2022Review
- Dynamic cybergenetic control of bacterial co-culture composition via optogenetic feedback.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Cybergenetic control of microbial community composition.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2022Review
- Measurement Techniques to Resolve and Control Population Dynamics of Mixed-Culture Processes.Trends in biotechnology · 2021Review
- An Unnatural Amino Acid-Regulated Growth Controller Based on Informational Disturbance.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- A unifying autocatalytic network-based framework for bacterial growth laws.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Tunable expression rate control of a growth-decoupled T7 expression system by L-arabinose only.Microbial cell factories · 2021Article
- Decoupling Growth and Protein Production in CHO Cells: A Targeted Approach.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 6 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The ability to control growth is essential for fundamental studies of bacterial physiology and biotechnological applications. We have engineered an Escherichia coli strain in which the transcription of a key component of the gene expression machinery, RNA polymerase, is under the control of an inducible promoter. By changing the inducer concentration in the medium, we can adjust the RNA polymerase concentration and thereby switch bacterial growth between zero and the maximal growth rate supported by the medium. We show that our synthetic growth switch functions in a medium-independent and reversible way, and we provide evidence that the switching phenotype arises from the ultrasensitive response of the growth rate to the concentration of RNA polymerase. We present an application of the growth switch in which both the wild-type E. coli strain and our modified strain are endowed with the capacity to produce glycerol when growing on glucose. Cells in which growth has been switched off continue to be metabolically active and harness the energy gain to produce glycerol at a twofold higher yield than in cells with natural control of RNA polymerase expression. Remarkably, without any further optimization, the improved yield is close to the theoretical maximum computed from a flux balance model of E. coli metabolism. The proposed synthetic growth switch is a promising tool for gaining a better understanding of bacterial physiology and for applications in synthetic biology and biotechnology.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.