Programming gene expression in multicellular organisms for physiology modulation through engineered bacteria

Nat Commun. 2021 May 11;12(1):2689. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-22894-7.

Abstract

A central goal of synthetic biology is to predictably and efficiently reprogram living systems to perform computations and carry out specific biological tasks. Although there have been many advances in the bio-computational design of living systems, these advances have mainly been applied to microorganisms or cell lines; programming animal physiology remains challenging for synthetic biology because of the system complexity. Here, we present a bacteria-animal symbiont system in which engineered bacteria recognize external signals and modulate animal gene expression, twitching phenotype, and fat metabolism through RNA interference toward gfp, sbp-1, and unc-22 gene in C. elegans. By using genetic circuits in bacteria to control these RNA expressions, we are able to program the physiology of the model animal Caenorhabditis elegans with logic gates. We anticipate that engineered bacteria can be used more extensively to program animal physiology for agricultural, therapeutic, and basic science applications.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Animals, Genetically Modified
  • Caenorhabditis elegans / genetics*
  • Caenorhabditis elegans / microbiology
  • Escherichia coli / genetics*
  • Escherichia coli / physiology
  • Gene Expression Regulation*
  • Gene Regulatory Networks / genetics*
  • Genetic Engineering / methods
  • Green Fluorescent Proteins / genetics
  • Green Fluorescent Proteins / metabolism
  • Microscopy, Fluorescence
  • RNA Interference
  • Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • Synthetic Biology / methods

Substances

  • Green Fluorescent Proteins