Written by IISER Pune II
Recent developments in Synthetic Biology engineered networks and organisms for disease-mechanism elucidation, drug-target identification, drug-discovery platforms, therapeutic treatment, therapeutic delivery, and drug production and access, to name a few.
The term synthetic biology was first used as early as the beginning of the 20th century. For instance, the French medical scientist and biologist Stephane Leduc published a book in 1912 entitled “La Biologie Synthétique.” Nevertheless, the roots of synthetic biology can actually be traced back to a landmark publication by Francois Jacob and Jacques Monad who studied the lac operon, and concluded that a cell’s response to its environment is underpinned by the regulatory circuits that exist within the cell. The ability to assemble new regulatory systems from molecular components was soon envisioned. Gradually, it was recognized that the rational manipulation of biological systems, either by systematically tuning or rearranging their modular molecular constituents, could form the basis of a formal biological engineering discipline. This led to the birth of synthetic biology, which has today grown into a field with groundbreaking applications.
A group of scientists recently developed a nanopore interface that makes higher bandwidth DNA computing possible. DNA is a powerful substrate for programming information processing machines at the nanoscale. The DNA displacement strand is a DNA computing primitive with wide-running applications, from disease diagnostics to molecular artificial neural networks. The outputs of DSD circuits are usually read using fluorescence spectroscopy. However, the spectral overlap of typically small-molecule fluorescence reporters poses several problems in the proper detection of a number of unique outputs. This group of researchers developed a multiplexable sequencing-free readout method enabling real-time, kinetic measurement of DSD circuit activity through nanopore sensor array technology that increases the DSD output bandwidth by an order of magnitude over what is feasible with fluorescence spectroscopy.
Another group of researchers developed bioengineered textiles with peptide binders that capture SARS-CoV-2 viral particles. Facemasks and personal protective equipment typically only partially prevents the transmission of respiratory viruses. The bioengineered textiles developed by these scientists have integrated peptide binders that capture the virus particles. Peptides that bind the receptor domain of the spike protein on the SARS-CoV-2 virus to the cellulose-binding domain from the Trichoderma reesei cellobiohydrolase II protein were fused with the textiles used to make facemasks and PPE kits. The resulting cotton reduces SARS-CoV-2 infection of the cells by 500 fold.
A recent study led to the development of sticky logic that programs bacteria to form multicellular patterns. Cells can be engineered to express synthetic adhesion molecules that create simple logic for patterning cell populations with visible boundaries. This approach can be furthered to make smart living materials and programmable biosensors a reality. Kim et al. have established a set of general principles for engineering programmable biosensors, biomaterials and artificial tissues with predictable patterns, based on a simple adhesion toolkit. The study shows the utility of synthetic biology in answering complex biological questions like formation of tissue boundaries during development.
Synthetic biology, along with its far-reaching applications also comes with tremendous responsibility.
There are three concerns when it comes to bioethics : concerns about ‘playing God’, which have been prominent in closely related areas of science; concerns about undermining the distinction between living things and machines, which attracted early attention from ethicists; and concerns about the deliberate misuse of knowledge from synthetic biology.
References:
1. Cameron DE, Bashor CJ, Collins JJ. A brief history of synthetic biology. Nat Rev Microbiol. 2014 May;12(5):381–90.
2. What is Synthetic/Engineering Biology? | EBRC [Internet]. [cited 2022 Oct 12]. Available from: https://ebrc.org/what-is-synbio/
3. Khalil AS, Collins JJ. Synthetic biology: applications come of age. Nat Rev Genet. 2010 May;11(5):367–79.
4. Synthetic biology - Latest research and news | Nature [Internet]. [cited 2022 Oct 12]. Available from: https://www.nature.com/subjects/synthetic-biology