Molecular engineering articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article |

    In vitro biochemical pathways could provide the high yields required for economical commodity chemical production, but require circuitry development to regulate high-energy cofactors. Here, the authors design and test a simple purge valve system to maintain NADP+/NADPH balance in E. coli.

    • Paul H. Opgenorth
    • , Tyler P. Korman
    •  & James U. Bowie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Extreme reproductive sex ratios could result in the suppression or elimination of pest populations. Here, the authors design a synthetic sex distortion system in Anopheles gambiaethat gives rise to fertile mosquito strains that produce over 95% male offsprings and could therefore be used to suppress mosquito populations.

    • Roberto Galizi
    • , Lindsey A. Doyle
    •  & Andrea Crisanti

  • Article |

    Optogenetic tools allow fine spatial control of signalling pathways using light. Chang et al. present a strategy for constructing light-sensitive receptor tyrosine kinases and demonstrate that optogenetic stimulation of Trk receptors in neurons promotes neurite outgrowth.

    • Ki-Young Chang
    • , Doyeon Woo
    •  & Won Do Heo

  • Article |

    Diatoms are photosynthetic microalgae with underutilized biotechnological potential. Here, the authors carry out targeted gene modifications of lipid metabolism genes in the diatom, Phaeodactylum tricornutum, resulting in a strain that exhibits a 45-fold increase in triacylglycerol accumulation.

    • Fayza Daboussi
    • , Sophie Leduc
    •  & Philippe Duchateau

  • Article |

    Model-based part design is a key step in synthetic biology. Here, the authors report a method for tuning nucleosome architecture in order to strengthen native promoters and facilitate synthetic promoter design in yeast.

    • Kathleen A. Curran
    • , Nathan C. Crook
    •  & Hal S. Alper

  • Article |

    Infrared fluorescent proteins offer advantages for deep in vivo imaging thanks to the tissue-penetrating properties of infrared light. Here, Yu et al. design a monomeric infrared fluorescent protein that, when combined with expression of haeme oxygenase in cells, shows improved performance for in vivoimaging of neurons and brain tumours.

    • Dan Yu
    • , William Clay Gustafson
    •  & Xiaokun Shu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The (seco)iridoids and their monoterpenoid indole alkaloid (MIA) derivatives are plant-derived compounds with pharmaceutical applications. Here, the authors identify the last four missing steps of the (seco)iridoid pathway, which they reconstitute in an alternative plant host to produce the complex MIA, strictosidine.

    • Karel Miettinen
    • , Lemeng Dong
    •  & Danièle Werck-Reichhart

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pheromones can be used as an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional pesticides. Here, the authors produce moth sex pheromones in Nicotiana benthamianaby transient expression and demonstrate that these pheromones are able to trap male moths as efficiently as their synthetic counterparts.

    • Bao-Jian Ding
    • , Per Hofvander
    •  & Christer Löfstedt

  • Article |

    Benzylisoquinoline alkaloids are a group of plant secondary metabolites with important pharmaceutical applications. Here, the authors have reconstituted a 10-gene alkaloid pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, demonstrating the feasibility of producing commercially important alkaloids in microbial systems.

    • Elena Fossati
    • , Andrew Ekins
    •  & Vincent J. J. Martin

  • Article |

    Incomplete oxidation of fuels is a common problem in enzymatic fuel cells and it leads to low energy densities. Zhu et al. report the complete oxidation of sugar in an enzymatic fuel cell through a synthetic enzymatic pathway, which exhibits higher energy densities than lithium-ion batteries.

    • Zhiguang Zhu
    • , Tsz Kin Tam
    •  & Y. -H. Percival Zhang

  • Article |

    Despite their clinical potential, cytokines can often be highly toxic in patients, due to their systemic activity. Here, the authors present a strategy to engineer immunocytokines with very high targeting efficacies using mutant cytokines linked to nanobodies that only become active when bound to a specific cell marker.

    • Geneviève Garcin
    • , Franciane Paul
    •  & Gilles Uzé

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Designer gene circuits allow the controlled expression of proteins in response to specific stimuli. Here, Rössger et al.use synthetic biology approaches to create a fatty-acid biosensor that controls the production of a satiety hormone and use it to control diet-induced obesity in mice.

    • Katrin Rössger
    • , Ghislaine Charpin-El-Hamri
    •  & Martin Fussenegger

  • Article |

    Cre recombinase is widely used to precisely manipulate genes and chromosomes, but it often displays off-target activity. Here, the authors improve the accuracy of Cre-mediated recombination by introducing specific mutations in the enzyme’s dimerization surface.

    • Nikolai Eroshenko
    •  & George M. Church

  • Article |

    Gene circuits created by synthetic biologists working in one system may not be functional when transferred to a different organism. Using computational modelling to identify factors underlying such differences, the authors successfully adapt a yeast ‘linearizer’ circuit so that it functions in mammalian cells.

    • Dmitry Nevozhay
    • , Tomasz Zal
    •  & Gábor Balázsi

  • Article |

    Genome-wide variation in the directed evolution of metabolite-overproducing microbes requires high-throughput screening platforms. Yang et al.show that synthetic RNA devices can sense target metabolites, enrich pathway optimisation, and expedite the evolution of metabolite-producing microbes.

    • Jina Yang
    • , Sang Woo Seo
    •  & Gyoo Yeol Jung

  • Article |

    Sequence-specific DNA endonucleases have found numerous applications in biology, but similar manipulations of RNA have been limited by the lack of suitable enzymes. These authors combine a cleavage domain with a designable binding domain and demonstrate the resulting RNA endonuclease's utilityin vitroand in cells.

    • Rajarshi Choudhury
    • , Yihsuan S. Tsai
    •  & Zefeng Wang

  • Article |

    Protein encapsulation in molecular cages has the potential to alter protein function and aid crystallization. Here, ubiquitin is encapsulated within a giant coordination cage; the protein is attached to a bidentate ligand, and the cage self-assembles upon addition of capping ligands and Pd(II) ions.

    • Daishi Fujita
    • , Kosuke Suzuki
    •  & Makoto Fujita

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Albumin transport proteins circulate in the blood and are protected from degradation by interaction with the neonatal Fc receptor. Andersenet al. investigate the albumin binding site of the neonatal Fc receptor and find pH sensitive ionic networks at the binding interface.

    • Jan Terje Andersen
    • , Bjørn Dalhus
    •  & Inger Sandlie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Advanced biofuels with comparable properties to petroleum-based fuels could be microbially produced from lignocellulosic biomass. In this study,Escherichia coliis engineered to produce bisabolene, the immediate precursor of bisabolane, a biosynthetic alternative to D2 diesel.

    • Pamela P. Peralta-Yahya
    • , Mario Ouellet
    •  & Taek Soon Lee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The control of cell fate and apoptosis is a continuing challenge in synthetic biology. In this study, systems are developed in which an intracellularly expressed genome-encoded protein simultaneously achieves up- and downregulation of two distinct apoptosis pathways.

    • Hirohide Saito
    • , Yoshihiko Fujita
    •  & Tan Inoue

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