ArticleNature chemical biology2021
Optogenetic control of the lac operon for bacterial chemical and protein production.
Article in Nature chemical biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 50 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
50 citing papers in PubMed, 124 citations in OpenAlex.
- Distinct energetic blueprints diversify function of conserved protein folds.Nature chemistry · 2026Article
- Dual-channel optogenetics in yeast for multiplexed light-based control of cellular processes and pathways.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Reprogramming probiotic for uric acid modular degradation and hyperuricemia treatment by synthetic biology regulation.Microbial cell factories · 2026Article
- Traceless Regulation of Genetic Circuitry.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Review
- Probiotic-Based Materials as Living Therapeutics.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2026Review
- A stationary phase-specific bacterial green light sensor for enhancing metabolite production.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Sugar-inducible promoters for manipulation of core metabolic pathways in the thermophilic acetogenApplied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Mammalian synthetic gene circuits for biopharmaceutical development & manufacture.NPJ systems biology and applications · 2025Review
- Balancing Doses of EL222 and Light Improves Optogenetic Induction of Protein Production in Komagataella phaffii.Biotechnology and bioengineering · 2025Article
- Digitizing the Blue Light-Activated T7 RNA Polymerase System with aACS synthetic biology · 2025Article
- Recent Advances in Spatiotemporal Manipulation of Engineered Bacteria for Precision Cancer Therapy.International journal of nanomedicine · 2025Review
- Delaying production with prokaryotic inducible expression systems.Microbial cell factories · 2024Review
- Induction of bacterial expression at the mRNA level by light.Nucleic acids research · 2024Article
- The Development of Epitope-Based Recombinant Protein Vaccines against SARS-CoV-2.The AAPS journal · 2024Review
- OptoLacI: optogenetically engineered lactose operon repressor LacI responsive to light instead of IPTG.Nucleic acids research · 2024Article
- Article
- Construction and Characterization of Light-Responsive Transcriptional Systems.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2024Article
- A low-cost and eco-friendly recombinant protein expression system using copper-containing industrial wastewater.Frontiers in microbiology · 2024Article
- Article
- Current Trends of Bacterial and Fungal Optoproteins for Novel Optical Applications.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Control of the lac operon with isopropyl β-D-1-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG) has been used to regulate gene expression in Escherichia coli for countless applications, including metabolic engineering and recombinant protein production. However, optogenetics offers unique capabilities, such as easy tunability, reversibility, dynamic induction strength and spatial control, that are difficult to obtain with chemical inducers. We have developed a series of circuits for optogenetic regulation of the lac operon, which we call OptoLAC, to control gene expression from various IPTG-inducible promoters using only blue light. Applying them to metabolic engineering improves mevalonate and isobutanol production by 24% and 27% respectively, compared to IPTG induction, in light-controlled fermentations scalable to at least two-litre bioreactors. Furthermore, OptoLAC circuits enable control of recombinant protein production, reaching yields comparable to IPTG induction but with easier tunability of expression. OptoLAC circuits are potentially useful to confer light control over other cell functions originally designed to be IPTG-inducible.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.