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Synthetic biology

Designer bacteria degrades toxin

A Retraction to this article was published on 14 February 2014

The ability to degrade atrazine has been engineered in a strain of Escherichia coli capable of responding specifically to the presence of the herbicide. A chemical biology approach generated an atrazine-sensitive riboswitch enabling a cellular response to occur only in the presence of the toxin.

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Figure 1: Design of an atrazine-sensitive riboswitch to regulate chemotaxis in E. coli.

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Correspondence to John R Kirby.

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Kirby, J. Designer bacteria degrades toxin. Nat Chem Biol 6, 398–399 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.378

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