A Universal Strategy to Promote Secretion of G+/G- Bacterial Extracellular Vesicles and Its Application in Host Innate Immune Responses.

Both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria release nanosized extracellular vesicles called membrane vesicles (MVs, 20-400 nm), which have great potential in various biomedical applications due to their abilities to deliver effector molecules and induce therapeutic responses. To fully utilize bacterial MVs for therapeutic purposes, regulated and enhanced production of MVs would be highly advantageous. In this study, we developed a universal method to enhance MV yields in both G+/G- bacteria through an autonomous controlled peptidoglycan hydrolase (PGase) expression system.

Systems engineering of Escherichia coli for n-butane production.

Rising concerns about climate change and sustainable energy have attracted efforts towards developing environmentally friendly alternatives to fossil fuels. Biosynthesis of n-butane, a highly desirable petro-chemical, fuel additive and diluent in the oil industry, remains a challenge. In this work, we first engineered enzymes Tes, Car and AD in the termination module to improve the selectivity of n-butane biosynthesis, and ancestral reconstruction and a synthetic RBS significantly improved the AD abundance.

Automation assisted anaerobic phenotyping for metabolic engineering.

Background: Microorganisms can be metabolically engineered to produce a wide range of commercially important chemicals. Advancements in computational strategies for strain design and synthetic biological techniques to construct the designed strains have facilitated the generation of large libraries of potential candidates for chemical production. Consequently, there is a need for high-throughput laboratory scale techniques to characterize and screen these candidates to select strains for further investigation in large scale fermentation processes.

Novel two-stage processes for optimal chemical production in microbes.

Microbial metabolism can be harnessed to produce a broad range of industrially important chemicals. Often, three key process variables: Titer, Rate and Yield (TRY) are the target of metabolic engineering efforts to improve microbial hosts toward industrial production. Previous research into improving the TRY metrics have examined the efficacy of having distinct growth and production stages to achieve enhanced productivity.

Impact framework: A python package for writing data analysis workflows to interpret microbial physiology.

Microorganisms can be genetically engineered to solve a range of challenges in diverse including health, environmental protection and sustainability. The natural complexity of biological systems makes this an iterative cycle, perturbing metabolism and making stepwise progress toward a desired phenotype through four major stages: design, build, test, and data interpretation. This cycle has been accelerated by advances in molecular biology (e.

An Optimized Bistable Metabolic Switch To Decouple Phenotypic States during Anaerobic Fermentation.

Metabolic engineers aim to genetically modify microorganisms to improve their ability to produce valuable compounds. Despite the prevalence of growth-coupled production processes, these strategies can significantly limit production rates. Instead, rates can be improved by decoupling and optimizing growth and production independently, and operating with a growth stage followed by a production stage.

Biocatalytic production of adipic acid from glucose using engineered .

Adipic acid is an important industrial chemical used in the synthesis of nylon-6,6. The commercial synthesis of adipic acid uses petroleum-derived benzene and releases significant quantities of greenhouse gases. Biocatalytic production of adipic acid from renewable feedstocks could potentially reduce the environmental damage and eliminate the need for fossil fuel precursors.

Implantable Defibrillator Therapy for the Elderly.

The clinical application of ICD devices in the management of patients with ventricular tachyarrhythmias and cardiac arrest is rapidly expanding and is projected to exceed 50,000 implants annually within the next 5 years. Recent clinical trials have established superior clinical efficacy and safety with the ICD in these conditions as compared to currently available type 1 or type 3 antiarrhythmic drugs. Ventricular tachyarrhythmias are common in the elderly and most ICD centers have elderly patients.