Demonstrating synthetic morphology using prokaryotic systems
Introduction
One popular definition of synthetic biology is ‘the re-design of existing, natural biological systems for useful purposes’ (Synthetic Biology, 2009). Coupled with our understanding of developmental biology, synthetic biology has the potential to provide a foundation for ‘synthetic morphology’. If successful, we can genetically program cells to have the ability to organize themselves into designed arrangements, structures and tissues. In this view, the project’s undertakings will consider ‘synthetic morphology’ by employing an engineering approach rather than a hypothesis-driven approach.
The lofty goals of synthetic morphology include medical applications such as constructing structures that are not within the normal developmental program of the body and creating artificial interfaces between body tissues and artificial limbs (Davies, 2009). Another conceivable application is the treatment of type I diabetes. Cell clusters can be engineered to secrete insulin, when embedded into endogenous tissues, they substitute for damaged pancreatic islets (Davies, 2009).
However, before any of these aspirations can be fulfilled, we have to lay the foundations of ‘synthetic morphology’. As such, we turn to proof-in-principle demonstrations of synthetic morphological systems. The objective of building a rudimentary system is to demonstrate that synthetic genetic networks can control morphogenetic behaviour of cells.
Project
In 2008, Shiomi and associates demonstrated that the cytoskeletal membrane protein, RodZ, is crucial for maintaining bacterial rod shape. They observed that RodZ controls cell size predominantly by regulating the length of the long axis of cells with RodZ deficient cells being round or oval. Building upon their observation, this project aims to use a genetic system comprising of rodZ (the effector) to investigate inducible morphogenic behaviour in E. coli.
