scholarly journals Towards developing algal synthetic biology

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 716-722 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Aden Scaife ◽  
Alison Gail Smith
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Transgene Expression ◽  
Phaeodactylum Tricornutum ◽  
Genetic Manipulation ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Molecular Tools ◽  
Metabolic Diversity ◽  
Design Build ◽  
Fundamental Research ◽  
And Function

The genetic, physiological and metabolic diversity of microalgae has driven fundamental research into photosynthesis, flagella structure and function, and eukaryotic evolution. Within the last 10 years these organisms have also been investigated as potential biotechnology platforms, for example to produce high value compounds such as long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, pigments and antioxidants, and for biodiesel precursors, in particular triacylglycerols (TAGs). Transformation protocols, molecular tools and genome sequences are available for a number of model species including the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum, although for both species there are bottlenecks to be overcome to allow rapid and predictable genetic manipulation. One approach to do this would be to apply the principles of synthetic biology to microalgae, namely the cycle of Design-Build-Test, which requires more robust, predictable and high throughput methods. In this mini-review we highlight recent progress in the areas of improving transgene expression, genome editing, identification and design of standard genetic elements (parts), and the use of microfluidics to increase throughput. We suggest that combining these approaches will provide the means to establish algal synthetic biology, and that application of standard parts and workflows will avoid parallel development and capitalize on lessons learned from other systems.

scholarly journals Biosynthesis of Nature-Inspired Unnatural Cannabinoids

Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (10) ◽  
pp. 2914
Author(s):  
Kevin J. H. Lim ◽  
Yan Ping Lim ◽  
Yossa D. Hartono ◽  
Maybelle K. Go ◽  
Hao Fan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Cannabis Sativa ◽  
Genetic Manipulation ◽  
Therapeutic Agents ◽  
Orphan Receptors ◽  
Complex Chemical ◽  
Biological Targets ◽  
Chemical Structures ◽  
Commercial Use ◽  
Wide Range

Natural products make up a large proportion of medicine available today. Cannabinoids from the plant Cannabis sativa is one unique class of meroterpenoids that have shown a wide range of bioactivities and recently seen significant developments in their status as therapeutic agents for various indications. Their complex chemical structures make it difficult to chemically synthesize them in efficient yields. Synthetic biology has presented a solution to this through metabolic engineering in heterologous hosts. Through genetic manipulation, rare phytocannabinoids that are produced in low yields in the plant can now be synthesized in larger quantities for therapeutic and commercial use. Additionally, an exciting avenue of exploring new chemical spaces is made available as novel derivatized compounds can be produced and investigated for their bioactivities. In this review, we summarized the biosynthetic pathways of phytocannabinoids and synthetic biology efforts in producing them in heterologous hosts. Detailed mechanistic insights are discussed in each part of the pathway in order to explore strategies for creating novel cannabinoids. Lastly, we discussed studies conducted on biological targets such as CB1, CB2 and orphan receptors along with their affinities to these cannabinoid ligands with a view to inform upstream diversification efforts.

Social Justice and Community-Based Rehabilitation Counseling

2021 ◽  
pp. JARC-D-20-00032
Author(s):  
Michael J. Millington
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Rehabilitation Counseling ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Based Rehabilitation ◽  
International Identity ◽  
And Function ◽  
Role And Function ◽  
Model Of Practice

This invited article reports and reflects upon the proceedings of a presentation at the NRCA Symposium on Social Justice held on in Memphis Tennessee in 2019. The author posits that a proper understanding of social justice opens the door for a new, international vision for rehabilitation counseling in the context of community. The model reinterprets rehabilitation counseling as social justice counseling within the framework of community-based rehabilitation as currently defined within the established matrix and guidelines. This model augments our understanding of rehabilitation counseling role and function with an emerging practice in advocacy/empowerment. The construct of empowerment is operationalized for development in practice across community settings. The author reflects upon lessons learned in advancing this model of practice in the Asia/Pacific region. In a call for collaborative next steps, he concludes that the way to an empowered international identity for rehabilitation counseling is through an activist, inclusive, international community of practice that advocates for our role as agents of social justice.

scholarly journals Properties of alternative microbial hosts used in synthetic biology: towards the design of a modular chassis

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 303-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juhyun Kim ◽  
Manuel Salvador ◽  
Elizabeth Saunders ◽  
Jaime González ◽  
Claudio Avignone-Rossa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Genetic Information ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Model Organisms ◽  
Biotechnological Applications ◽  
Cell Models ◽  
Genetic Circuits ◽  
Metabolic Diversity ◽  
Translational Machinery ◽  
Metabolic Fluxes

The chassis is the cellular host used as a recipient of engineered biological systems in synthetic biology. They are required to propagate the genetic information and to express the genes encoded in it. Despite being an essential element for the appropriate function of genetic circuits, the chassis is rarely considered in their design phase. Consequently, the circuits are transferred to model organisms commonly used in the laboratory, such as Escherichia coli, that may be suboptimal for a required function. In this review, we discuss some of the properties desirable in a versatile chassis and summarize some examples of alternative hosts for synthetic biology amenable for engineering. These properties include a suitable life style, a robust cell wall, good knowledge of its regulatory network as well as of the interplay of the host components with the exogenous circuits, and the possibility of developing whole-cell models and tuneable metabolic fluxes that could allow a better distribution of cellular resources (metabolites, ATP, nucleotides, amino acids, transcriptional and translational machinery). We highlight Pseudomonas putida, widely used in many different biotechnological applications as a prominent organism for synthetic biology due to its metabolic diversity, robustness and ease of manipulation.

scholarly journals The Use of Plants for Remediation of Metal-Contaminated Soils

2004 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 9-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andon Vassilev ◽  
Jean-Paul Schwitzguebél ◽  
Theo Thewys ◽  
Daniël van der Lelie ◽  
Jaco Vangronsveld
Keyword(s):  
Contaminated Soils ◽  
Environmental Contaminants ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Emerging Technology ◽  
Plant Roots ◽  
Metabolic Diversity ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
Fundamental Research ◽  
Micro Organisms

The use of green plants to remove, contain, inactivate, or degrade harmful environmental contaminants (generally termed phytoremediation) is an emerging technology. In this paper, an overview is given of existing information concerning the use of plants for the remediation of metal-contaminated soils. Both site decontamination (phytoextraction) and stabilization techniques (phytostabilization) are described. In addition to the plant itself, the use of soil amendments for mobilization (in case of phytoextraction) and immobilization (in case of phytostabilization) is discussed. Also, the economical impacts of changed land-use, eventual valorization of biomass, and cost-benefit aspects of phytoremediation are treated. In spite of the growing public and commercial interest and success, more fundamental research is needed still to better exploit the metabolic diversity of the plants themselves, but also to better understand the complex interactions between metals, soil, plant roots, and micro-organisms (bacteria and mycorrhiza) in the rhizosphere. Further, more demonstration experiments are needed to measure the underlying economics, for publicacceptance and last but not least, to convince policy makers.

scholarly journals Why Governments Should Invest More in Fundamental Research

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Venki Ramakrishnan ◽  
Mejd Alsari
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Biology ◽  
Nobel Prize ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Group Leader ◽  
Structure And Function ◽  
Science And Engineering ◽  
Fundamental Research ◽  
And Function

Venkatraman ‘Venki’ Ramakrishnan is the President of The Royal Society and Group Leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. In 2009 he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry ‘for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome’. In this interview he explains why governments should invest more in basic scientific research rather than simply on applied science and engineering. He also discusses interdisciplinarity, collaborations, and public engagement.

scholarly journals Synthetic Biology Open Language Visual (SBOL Visual) Version 2.1

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Curtis Madsen ◽  
Angel Goni Moreno ◽  
Zachary Palchick ◽  
Umesh P ◽  
Nicholas Roehner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Nucleic Acid ◽  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Molecular Species ◽  
Chemical Process ◽  
Structure And Function ◽  
Genomic Context ◽  
Functional Relationships ◽  
Synthetic Biology Open Language ◽  
And Function ◽  
Biological Organisms

AbstractPeople who are engineering biological organisms often find it useful to communicate in diagrams, both about the structure of the nucleic acid sequences that they are engineering and about the functional relationships between sequence features and other molecular species . Some typical practices and conventions have begun to emerge for such diagrams. The Synthetic Biology Open Language Visual (SBOL Visual) has been developed as a standard for organizing and systematizing such conventions in order to produce a coherent language for expressing the structure and function of genetic designs. This document details version 2.1 of SBOL Visual, which builds on the prior SBOL Visual 2.0 standard by expanding diagram syntax to include methods for showing modular structure and mappings between elements of a system, interactions arrows that can split or join (with the glyph at the split or join indicating either superposition or a chemical process), and adding new glyphs for indicating genomic context (e.g., integration into a plasmid or genome) and for stop codons.

scholarly journals Highly multiplexed, fast and accurate nanopore sequencing for verification of synthetic DNA constructs and sequence libraries

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Currin ◽  
Neil Swainston ◽  
Mark S Dunstan ◽  
Adrian J Jervis ◽  
Paul Mulherin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Dna Sequencing ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Polymorphism Analysis ◽  
Sequencing Data ◽  
Single Nucleotide Variants ◽  
Single Nucleotide ◽  
Synthetic Dna ◽  
Design Build ◽  
Hardware Costs

Abstract Synthetic biology utilizes the Design–Build–Test–Learn pipeline for the engineering of biological systems. Typically, this requires the construction of specifically designed, large and complex DNA assemblies. The availability of cheap DNA synthesis and automation enables high-throughput assembly approaches, which generates a heavy demand for DNA sequencing to verify correctly assembled constructs. Next-generation sequencing is ideally positioned to perform this task, however with expensive hardware costs and bespoke data analysis requirements few laboratories utilize this technology in-house. Here a workflow for highly multiplexed sequencing is presented, capable of fast and accurate sequence verification of DNA assemblies using nanopore technology. A novel sample barcoding system using polymerase chain reaction is introduced, and sequencing data are analyzed through a bespoke analysis algorithm. Crucially, this algorithm overcomes the problem of high-error rate nanopore data (which typically prevents identification of single nucleotide variants) through statistical analysis of strand bias, permitting accurate sequence analysis with single-base resolution. As an example, 576 constructs (6 × 96 well plates) were processed in a single workflow in 72 h (from Escherichia coli colonies to analyzed data). Given our procedure’s low hardware costs and highly multiplexed capability, this provides cost-effective access to powerful DNA sequencing for any laboratory, with applications beyond synthetic biology including directed evolution, single nucleotide polymorphism analysis and gene synthesis.

Meeting the New Regulatory Requirements for Pipeline Control Room Management

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Kieba ◽  
Byron Coy
Keyword(s):  
Management Practices ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Control Room ◽  
Roles And Responsibilities ◽  
Safety Requirements ◽  
Safety Regulations ◽  
Human Fatigue ◽  
And Function ◽  
And Control ◽  
The U.S

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has amended the U.S. pipeline safety regulations to prescribe safety requirements for controllers, control rooms, and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems used to remotely monitor and control pipeline operations. The objective of Control Room Management (CRM) is to help assure the controllers will continue to be successful in maintaining pipeline integrity and safety, and help reduce the number and consequences of shortfalls in control room management practices and operator errors when remotely monitoring and controlling pipelines and responding to abnormal and emergency conditions. CRM helps to address this by prescribing safety requirements intended to verify that procedures, systems, and equipment are well thought out and function as intended. CRM also intends to help assure that pipeline operators are addressing human fatigue risks and other human factors inside the control room that could inhibit a controller’s ability to carry out the roles and responsibilities the operator has defined for the safe operation of the pipeline. This paper will go over the background and elements of the rule, additional guidance and resources that have been provided publically, and lessons learned through the development and roll out of the new requirements.

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