Engineering bacteria to control electron transport altering the synthesis of non-native polymer

Mechelle R Bennett; Akhil Jain; Katalin Kovacs; Phil J Hill; Cameron Alexander; Frankie J Rawson

doi:10.1039/d1ra06403g

Engineering bacteria to control electron transport altering the synthesis of non-native polymer

RSC Adv. 2021 Dec 21;12(1):451-457. doi: 10.1039/d1ra06403g. eCollection 2021 Dec 20.

Authors

Mechelle R Bennett¹, Akhil Jain^{1

2}, Katalin Kovacs², Phil J Hill³, Cameron Alexander⁴, Frankie J Rawson¹

Affiliations

¹ Division of Regenerative Medicine and Cellular Therapies, Biodiscovery Institute, School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham University Park Nottingham NG7 2RD UK Frankie.Rawson@nottingham.ac.uk.
² Synthetic Biology Research Centre, School of Life Sciences, University of Nottingham University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD UK.
³ Division of Microbiology, Brewing and Biotechnology, School of Bioscience, University of Nottingham Sutton Bonington Campus Nottingham LE15 5RD UK.
⁴ Division of Molecular Therapeutics and Formulation, Boots Science Building, School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham University Park Nottingham NG7 2RD UK.

Abstract

The use of bacteria as catalysts for radical polymerisations of synthetic monomers has recently been established. However, the role of trans Plasma Membrane Electron Transport (tPMET) in modulating these processes is not well understood. We sort to study this by genetic engineering a part of the tPMET system NapC in E. coli. We show that this engineering altered the rate of extracellular electron transfer coincided with an effect on cell-mediated polymerisation using a model monomer. A plasmid with arabinose inducible PBAD promoters were shown to upregulate NapC protein upon induction at total arabinose concentrations of 0.0018% and 0.18%. These clones (E. coli _{(IP_0.0018%)} and E. coli _{(IP_0.18%)}, respectively) were used in iron-mediated atom transfer radical polymerisation (Fe ATRP), affecting the nature of the polymerisation, than cultures containing suppressed or empty plasmids (E. coli _{(IP_S)} and E. coli _(E), respectively). These results lead to the hypothesis that EET (Extracellular Electron Transfer) in part modulates cell instructed polymerisations.