Abstract
Characterizing the dynamics of HydHG—a two-component transcriptional regulatory network for exogenous zinc in E. coli—is essential in understanding the biology of these regulatory and signaling pathways. Here, we used a synthetic biology strategy to modify the dynamic characteristics of the HydHG network in two ways. First, a self-activation loop for HydHG network was created under the control of zraP promoter, after which the threshold Zn2+ concentration for the self-activated HydHG network significantly decreased from 200 to 10 μM. Second, the self-activation loop was integrated into the E. coli genome allowing the threshold Zn2+ concentration to be elevated to 500 μM. As the threshold Zn2+ concentration could be modified in both directions, the introduction of a self-activation loop and the entire genomic integration strategy may prove useful for the creation of a two-component bacterial biosensor with varying sensitivities.
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This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2010-0012850).
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V. D. Pham and S. Ravikumar contributed equally to this work.
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Pham, V.D., Ravikumar, S., Lee, S.H. et al. Modification of response behavior of zinc sensing HydHG two-component system using a self-activation loop and genomic integration. Bioprocess Biosyst Eng 36, 1185–1190 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-012-0845-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00449-012-0845-7