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Engineering RGB color vision into Escherichia coli

Nature Chemical Biology volume 13, pages 706–708 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

Optogenetic tools use colored light to rapidly control gene expression in space and time. We designed a genetically encoded system that gives Escherichia coli the ability to distinguish between red, green, and blue (RGB) light and respond by changing gene expression. We use this system to produce 'color photographs' on bacterial culture plates by controlling pigment production and to redirect metabolic flux by expressing CRISPRi guide RNAs.

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Figure 1: The RGB system in Escherichia coli.
Figure 2: Color photography by Escherichia coli.
Figure 3: Three-color control of metabolic flux to acetate.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank N. DeLateur and R. Weiss for assistance with fluorescence microscopy and L. Gonzalez for assistance with hardware. This work was supported by US National Science Foundation Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC EEC0540879), the Office of Naval Research Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (N00014-11-1-0725 and N00014-13-1-0074), and the National Institutes of Health (R01-GM095765 and R01-GM096164).

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Author notes

  1. Jesus Fernandez-Rodriguez and Felix Moser: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Engineering, Synthetic Biology Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    Jesus Fernandez-Rodriguez, Felix Moser, Miryoung Song & Christopher A Voigt

Authors
  1. Jesus Fernandez-Rodriguez
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  2. Felix Moser
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  3. Miryoung Song
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  4. Christopher A Voigt
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Contributions

C.A.V., J.F.-R., and F.M. conceived of the study and designed the experiments. J.F.-R. and F.M. performed the experiments and analyzed the data. M.S. designed and built the genomic gusBC system. C.A.V., J.F.-R., and F.M. wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christopher A Voigt.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Results, Supplementary Note, Supplementary Table 1 and Supplementary Figures 1–13 (PDF 32038 kb)

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Fernandez-Rodriguez, J., Moser, F., Song, M. et al. Engineering RGB color vision into Escherichia coli. Nat Chem Biol 13, 706–708 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.2390

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