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Upstream Processes: Metabolic Engineering and Synthetic Biology |
A 60-minute web symposium with live audio and PowerPoint slides including question and answer periods following each talk.
Symposium Date: Friday, October 28th, 2011 12:00pm EST, 9:00am PT
• Industrial Site Registration Fee: $190 per site
• Academic Site Registration Fee: Free access pending request *
E-mail BIOT Webinar Coordinator (admin@biotwebinar.com) for a registration coupon code
•Organizers: Ranjan Srivastava, Ganesh Sriram
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Abstracts |
| How to tie a peptide knot Prof. A. James Link, Si Jia Pan, Wai Ling Cheung. Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States |
Lasso peptides are short peptides (~20 aa) produced by bacteria that have a unique knotted topology in which the N-terminus of the peptide forms an isopeptide bond with a glutamic acid or aspartic acid sidechain. The C-terminal "tail" of the peptide is fed through the resulting macrocycle resulting in the characteristic lasso structure. Lasso peptides have tremendous resistance to chemical and thermal denaturation and exhibit resistance to most proteases making this scaffold attractive for therapeutic and diagnostic uses. This talk will focus on work in my group exploring the metabolic engineering of lasso peptide production and the engineering of the lasso peptide framework. In addition, basic studies aimed at understanding the folding of lasso peptides and elucidating the biosynthetic pathways bacteria use to make these peptides will be discussed.
| Glucose valves: Tuning primary metabolism for heterologous production Kevin V Solomon, Tae Seok Moon, Kristala L J Prather. Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States; Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC), Cambridge, MA, United States |
In engineering production pathways, competition between desired and endogenous processes frequently creates a bottleneck that limits productivity. Common flux manipulation strategies, however, are infeasible when the heterologous pathway competes directly with central metabolism. In this study, we have engineered a viable E. coli host that decouples glucose transport and phosphorylation allowing us to independently control the flux of glucose through control of glucokinase (glk) expression. Through the use of antisense RNA, we are able to inhibit glk activity by up to 25% and perturb central metabolism with an attendant increase in the specific productivity of a model glucose-consuming pathway. In this talk, I will compare these constructs with simple gene circuits as alternative strategies for creating an analog, tunable 'glucose valve'. Such devices allow for fine control of glycolytic flux and create novel opportunities for pathway optimization and development.