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Research

Biological systems - including the simplest cells - exhibit a broad range of functions to thrive in their environment. Research in the Imperial College Centre for Synthetic Biology is focused on the possibility of engineering the underlying biochemical processes to solve many of the challenges facing society, from healthcare to sustainable energy. In particular, we model, analyse, design and build biological and biochemical systems in living cells and/or in cell extracts, both exploring and enhancing the engineering potential of biology.

As part of our research we develop novel methods to accelerate the celebrated Design-Build-Test-Learn synthetic biology cycle. As such research in the Centre for Synthetic Biology highly multi- and interdisciplinary covering computational modelling and machine learning approaches; automated platform development and genetic circuit engineering ; multi-cellular and multi-organismal interactions, including gene drive and genome engineering; metabolic engineering; in vitro/cell-free synthetic biology; engineered phages and directed evolution; and biomimetics, biomaterials and biological engineering.

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Weenink:2019:synbio/ysy019,
author = {Weenink, T and van, der Hilst J and McKiernan, R and Ellis, T},
doi = {synbio/ysy019},
journal = {Synthetic Biology},
title = {Design of RNA hairpin modules that predictably tune translation in yeast},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/synbio/ysy019},
volume = {3},
year = {2019}
}

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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Modular parts for tuning translation are prevalent in prokaryotic synthetic biology but lacking for eukaryotic synthetic biology. Working in Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast, we here describe how hairpin RNA structures inserted into the 5′ untranslated region (5′UTR) of mRNAs can be used to tune expression levels by 100-fold by inhibiting translation. We determine the relationship between the calculated free energy of folding in the 5′UTR and in vivo protein abundance, and show that this enables rational design of hairpin libraries that give predicted expression outputs. Our approach is modular, working with different promoters and protein coding sequences, and outperforms promoter mutation as a way to predictably generate a library where a protein is induced to express at a range of different levels. With this new tool, computational RNA sequence design can be used to predictably fine-tune protein production for genes expressed in yeast.
AU  - Weenink,T
AU  - van,der Hilst J
AU  - McKiernan,R
AU  - Ellis,T
DO  - synbio/ysy019
PY  - 2019///
SN  - 2397-7000
TI  - Design of RNA hairpin modules that predictably tune translation in yeast
T2  - Synthetic Biology
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/synbio/ysy019
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/65245
VL  - 3
ER  -

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