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Meghantighe Bionetworks Finalposter
Meghantighe Bionetworks Finalposter
Introduction
In synthetic biology, it is very important to be able to
exercise control over the conditions in which engineered
systems are tested and grown. One particular challenge is
controlling growth rates. This study explores a method of
controlling the growth rates of multiple strains of Escherichia
coli in a complex system through metabolic loading.
Two different strains of E. coli are used, each with
different inducible fluorescent proteins. The introduction of
their respective inducers allows the corresponding cells to
begin to fluoresce, increasing their metabolic load, which in
turn decreases their growth rate. Visualization of the
changes in growth rate is also made possible through the
fluorescent proteins.
The use of microfluidic devices allows both close
monitoring of cells and control of substances added to the
media. Experiments are run overnight and the use of timelapse fluorescent microscopy allows for the tracking of
individual cells as they divide and fluoresce.
Mixers
Dial-A-Wave
The microfluidic device used for this experiment contains a critical feature
called the Dial-A-Wave (DAW). The DAW allows for more than one type of
media (in this case, media with or without inducer) to be given at specified
ratios. The DAW design is shown below.
Results confirm the hypothesis that introduction of fructose
causes heightened levels of cyan fluorescence.
pLac
Trehalose
Cell trap
Experimental Design
Fructose
YFP
Shis, David L., Faiza Hussain, Sarah Meinhardt, Liskin Swint-Kruse, and Matthew R.
Bennett. "Modular, Multi-Input Transcriptional Logic Gating with Orthogonal LacI/GalR
Family Chimeras." ACS Synth. Biol. ACS Synthetic Biology 3.9 (2014): 645-51. Web.
This work was supported by an NSF award from the Division of Biological Infrastructure
No. 1262296.