Synthetic Biology - Microbiology - Lecture Slides, Slides of Microbiology

Download Synthetic Biology - Microbiology - Lecture Slides and more Slides Microbiology in PDF only on Docsity! SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY Emerging Trends in Biology OS Joo = 5 een   (also known as Synbio, Synthetic Genomics, Constructive Biology or Systems Biology) – the design and construction of new biological parts, devices and systems that do not exist in the natural world and also the redesign of existing biological systems to perform specific tasks. Advances in Nano scale technologies – manipulation of matter at the level of atoms and molecules – are contributing to advances in synthetic biology. Definition: Synthetic Biology 2 Docsity.com  Synthetic Biology Means ?  It is an emerging field of biology that aims at designing and building novel biological systems.  The final goal is to be able to design biological systems in the same way engineers design electronic or mechanical systems. 5 Docsity.com  Synthetic biology is a new area of biological research that combines science and engineering. Synthetic biology encompasses a variety of different approaches, methodologies and disciplines, and many different definitions exist. What they all have in common, however, is that they see synthetic biology as the design and construction of new biological functions and systems not found in nature. Synthetic Biology – A new Biological Research 6 Docsity.com  Subfields of contemporary SB 2. DNA based bio-circuits 3. Minimal genome 4. Protocells 5. Chemical SB/Xenobiology 1. DNA Synthesis 7 Docsity.com  Synthetic Biology Redefines Life  Broadly the term has been used with reference to efforts to ‗redesign life‘  This use of the term is an extension of the concept of ‗biomimetic chemistry‘, in which organic synthesis is used to create artificial molecules that recapitulate the behavior of parts of biology, typically enzymes 10 Docsity.com   Synthetic biology has a broader scope, however, in that it attempts to recreate in unnatural chemical systems the emergent properties of living systems, including inheritance, genetics and evolution Synthetic biologists seek to assemble components that are not natural (therefore synthetic) to generate chemical systems that support Darwinian evolution  The motivation is similar in biomimetic chemistry, where synthetic enzyme models are important for understanding natural enzymes. Scope of Synthetic Biology 11 Docsity.com   Potential applications of synthetic biology range very widely across scientific and engineering disciplines, from medicine to energy generation. For example, designed microorganisms might be capable of producing pharmaceutical compounds that are extremely challenging for existing methods of chemical or biological synthesis. While several pharmaceuticals are already produced biotechnologically using genetically engineered organisms, the capacity to design complex synthesis pathways into such organisms could greatly expand the repertoire of products that can be made this way. What can synthetic biology achieve? 12 Docsity.com  Goals in Synthetic Engineering Engineering Goal: To build components that can be reliably and predictably assembled into ever more complicated systems 15 Docsity.com  Synthetic Biology Adopts Many Techniques Nanotechnology is emulating biology Molecular assemblers, molecular sensors ‘Bots’ that deliver medicine to specific cells Biotechnology is helping out Genetic ‘reengineering’ of e-coli, phages Nano-Bio or Bio-Nano? Two very interesting approaches… The answer might be ‘synthetic biology’ 16 Docsity.com Nature as a Nano Toolbox H. Wang and G. Oster (1998). Nature 396:279-282 Wa Dacsity.com Bio-Nano Convergence maleimido Nanogold This-Ptanax Array of Gold Nanoparticles was formed on a carbon film by the method summarized in the text. 20 Docsity.com Bio-Nano Machinery Using protein / viral complexes and DNA to self-assemble devices, and novel function, into biomechanical systems Earth’s early nanostructures ~ 2 billion years ago 21 Docsity.com  Molecular Self Assembly Figure1: 3D diagram of a lipid bilayer membrane - water molecules not represented for clarity 22 Docsity.com  How computer Helps in Designing Life  While computers store and process information in binary strings – coded as the numbers 0 and 1 – DNA operates in (mathematical) base four.  Its information is coded by the sequence of the four nucleotide bases, A, C, T and G. The bases are spaced every 0.35 nm along the DNA molecule, giving DNA a data density of over one-half million gigabits per square centimeter, many thousands of times more dense than a typical hard drive. 25 Docsity.com  How Technology helps to create Life  It would take more than a trillion music CDs to hold the amount of information that DNA can hold in a cubic centimeter. Moreover, different strands of DNA can all be working on computational problems at the same time – and are a lot cheaper than buying multiple PowerBooks 26 Docsity.com  DNA synthesis speeds Science ?  The increasing speed and decreasing cost of DNA synthesis will assist the progress of experimental research in the biological sciences (Endy 2005). For these reasons, the discussion of applications and their opportunities is rather speculative. 27 Docsity.com   In vivo applications. There are a range of potential applications of synthetic biology which could monitor and respond to conditions in the human body. For example, regulatory circuits could be designed which trigger insulin production in diabetes (ITI Life Sciences 2007). Bacteria or viruses could be programmed to identify malignant cancer cells and deliver therapeutic agents (Serrano 2007). Viruses have also been engineered to interact with HIV-infected cells, which could prevent the development of AIDS (De Vriend 2006). Medical Applications 30 Docsity.com  Synthetic Biology Creates New Drug Development New drug development pathways. One of the avenues of synthetic biology that has wide application is the development of alternative production routes for useful compounds, and one of the most discussed of these is the construction of an artificial metabolic pathway in E. coli and yeast to produce a precursor (arteminisin) for an antimalarial drug (Martin et al. 2003, Ro et al. 2006). 31 Docsity.com  Solutions for HIV and Cancer Can be used for development of other therapeutically useful compounds for cancer and HIV treatment (Voigt 2005). Polyketides are another important class of drugs which could potentially be produced using synthetic biology (Heinemann and Panke 2006). 32 Docsity.com  Bio based manufacturing and chemical synthesis  The development of alternative production routes (as in the arteminisin case above) does not have to be limited to health- related applications, but could also be used for the production of other useful compounds 35 Docsity.com   These potential applications of synthetic biology have to be viewed in the light of the possible risks. There are two factors which make the risk governance of synthetic biology potentially problematic. The first is that synthetic biology (like genetic engineering) involves the production of living organisms, which by definition are self- propagating. The second is that with the growth of the Internet and the routinisation of many biotechnological procedures, the tools for doing synthetic biology are readily accessible (Garfinkel et al. 2007). Risks related to synthetic biology 36 Docsity.com   The major biosafety risk of synthetic biology is the accidental release of synthetic organisms, which could have unintended detrimental effects on the environment or on human health (De Vriend 2006). This could be a particular in the case of bioremediation, where synthetic organisms would be purposely released into the environment, for example to remove toxins from the soil. Not only are microorganisms living and self-propagating, but they also evolve rapidly, and they can exchange genetic material with each other across species boundaries Environmental risks: biosafety 37 Docsity.com  Synthetic Biology can create New Pathogens The major advantage of our approach is putting together well characterized components. Creating new pathogens would require a full scale research effort 40 Docsity.com  41 SYNBIOSAFE: Safety and Ethical aspects of Synthetic Biology  Ethics  Related to its applications (e.g. human enhancement)  Related to its distribution (e.g. biofuel production)  Related to the procedure as such (e.g. status of living machines) Biosafety  How to assess risks from new SB products, functions and systems?  How can we improve safety through SB biosafety engineering?  What happens if non-professionals (amateurs, hackers) start using SB? Docsity.com  Rebooting Life  A new report looks at the challenges of regulating first generation products of synthetic biology. At the J. Craig Venter Institute, scientists are on the verge of creating a living organism from ―dead‖ chemicals, by rebooting a microbe with a new—and completely artificially constructed— genome. At the University of California Berkeley, researchers are modifying microbes to 42 Docsity.com   The complete synthetic M. mycoides genome was isolated from the yeast cell and transplanted into Mycoplasma capricolum recipient cells that have had the genes for its restriction enzyme removed. The synthetic genome DNA was transcribed into messenger RNA, which in turn was translated into new proteins. The M. capricolum genome was either destroyed by M. mycoides restriction enzymes or was lost during cell replication. After two days viable M. mycoides cells, which contained only synthetic DNA, were clearly visible on petri dishes containing bacterial growth medium. 45 First Self-Replicating Synthetic Bacterial Cell Docsity.com  46 Breakthrough in creating Synthetic Cell  Creating a 'synthetic cell', as described in a report published online in Science, meant putting together a series of previously developed steps. First, the team established a method for transplanting natural DNA from M. mycoides into M. capricolum . Then, working with Mycoplasma genitalium, a species whose genome is about half the length of that of M. mycoides, the group stitched together a synthetic donor genome and cloned it in a yeast cell Docsity.com  47 New Hope in Science  It is hoped that this discovery will lead to the development of many important applications and products including biofuels, vaccines, pharmaceuticals, clean water and food products. Cleaning up oil spills maybe? Docsity.com