Chinese scientists first proposed the spatial position effect of synthetic biology

Chinese scientists first proposed the spatial position effect of synthetic biology

Chinese scientists first proposed the spatial position effect of synthetic biology Chinese scientists first proposed the spatial position effect of synthetic biology

From "location effect" to "spatial location effect" image courtesy of Huazhong Agricultural University

 From "location effect" to "spatial location effect" image courtesy of Huazhong Agricultural University

Recently, "Biotechnology Trends" published an article online by He Jin's research team from the State Key Laboratory of Agricultural Microbiology of Huazhong Agricultural University and Hubei Hongshan Laboratory.
The concept of "spatial position effect" was first proposed, which opened up a new approach in synthetic biology.
The development direction of Synthetic Biology has realized the cross-fusion of synthetic biology and three-dimensional genomics, which also means that synthetic biology has entered the era of three-dimensional genomes
.

Green bio-manufacturing is the process of using microbial cell factories to convert renewable biomass into biological products with higher added value
.

In order to build an efficient microbial cell factory, researchers use synthetic biology and metabolic engineering strategies to design and optimize synthetic gene circuits and introduce them into the plasmid or genome of industrial chassis strains

Studies have shown that when genes are integrated into different positions in the genome, their expression levels will show significant differences, that is, there is a "position effect"
.

At present, researchers mainly use the method of random integration of reporter genes to study the law of "location effect"

He Jin's team put forward the concept of "spatial location effect" for the first time in this article
.

That is to say, starting from the study of the reasons for the "location effect" of the spatial structure of the genome, the research technology using 3D genomics, such as 3C and its derivative technology and ultra-high-resolution microscopy imaging technology, is proposed.

On this basis, according to the chromosome arrangement direction, the characteristics of the chromosome interaction domain, and the distance between the protein binding site and the chromosome structure, the integration site of the synthetic gene circuit in the chassis strain genome was rationally designed
.

Through the preliminary screening of reporter genes, the synthetic gene lines are introduced into the dominant integration sites for more in-depth analysis and verification, and the mathematical model is further constructed

The article also looks forward to the application direction and development trend of "spatial position effect" in synthetic biology
.

The construct an optimal three-dimensional genome or minimal three genomes studied the single cell level 3D genome, "space-time position effects", "spatial position effect" visualization and "spatial location effect" and the plurality of sets of learned correlation analysis

The research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China
.

(Source: China Science News Li Chen)

Related paper information: https://doi.

https://doi.
org/10.
1016/j.
tibtech.
2021.
09.
001