Team:SYSU-CHINA
ICE Pro
In vivo Continuous Evolution in Prokaryote
The aim of our project this year is to build an efficient system that is able to evolve biological parts with new desirable functions or features.
As Professor Dobzhansky goes, Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution[1], and we believe this is of no exception in the field of Synthetic Biology. The build-test-debug circle after the rational design is one of the most critical concepts in biology engineering. However, after decades of development, this process is still slow, laborious and hard to manipulate due to the vast complexity of biological systems. Interestingly, we consider evolution as a possible solution, because the mutate-selection-survive process in natural selection quite resembles the build-test-debug circle.
So this year, we came up with the ICE Pro, In vivo Continuous Evolution in Prokaryotes, giving it the first try to bring evolution to Synthetic Biology. We sought to engineer Ll.trB group II intron from Escherichia coli (E. Coli) into a one-step high-throughput mutagenesis generation and screening machine. Ll.trB is a special reverse-transcription transposon, with the ability to transcribe into mRNA, and then reverse-transcribe into DNA before inserting back to the genome[2]. Our rationale is that, because of the lack of mismatch repair and the quick proliferation rate of E. Coli, a large mutation library can be built in a short time. Subsequently, a quick and easy screening can be achieved by posing a selection pressure in the environment. We believe this system can be used to optimize almost any proteins useful in any fields from medical to food, from energy to environment. What’s more, ICE Pro is also able to evolve other parts, such as promoters.
References
1. Dobzhansky, T., Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution. American Biology Teacher, 2013. 75(2): p. 87-91.
2. Lambowitz, A.M. and S. Zirnmerly, Mobile group II introns. Annual Review of Genetics, 2004. 38: p. 1-35.
