title: Artificially constructed quorum-sensing circuits are used for subtle control of bacterial population density.
abstract: Vibrio fischeri is a typical quorum-sensing bacterium for which lux box, luxR, and luxI have been identified as the key elements involved in quorum sensing. To decode the quorum-sensing mechanism, an artificially constructed cell-cell communication system has been built. In brief, the system expresses several programmed cell-death BioBricks and quorum-sensing genes driven by the promoters lux pR and PlacO-1 in Escherichia coli cells. Their transformation and expression was confirmed by gel electrophoresis and sequencing. To evaluate its performance, viable cell numbers at various time periods were investigated. Our results showed that bacteria expressing killer proteins corresponding to ribosome binding site efficiency of 0.07, 0.3, 0.6, or 1.0 successfully sensed each other in a population-dependent manner and communicated with each other to subtly control their population density. This was also validated using a proposed simple mathematical model.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biochemical Engineering, Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China; The Key Lab for Synthetic Biotechnology of Xiamen City, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
authors.forename: Zhaoshou
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biochemical Engineering, Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China; The Key Lab for Synthetic Biotechnology of Xiamen City, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biochemical Engineering, Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
authors.forename: Jianghai
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biochemical Engineering, Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China; The Key Lab for Synthetic Biotechnology of Xiamen City, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
authors.forename: Yidan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biochemical Engineering, Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China; The Key Lab for Chemical Biology of Fujian Province, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China; The Key Lab for Synthetic Biotechnology of Xiamen City, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
authors.forename: Baishan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biochemical Engineering, Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China; The Key Lab for Synthetic Biotechnology of Xiamen City, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
authors.forename: Shiyang
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Huang
mesh_terms: D048908:Aliivibrio fischeri / Q000254:growth & development*; D001665:Binding Sites / Q000235:genetics; D016923:Cell Death / Q000235:genetics; D017931:DNA Primers / Q000235:genetics; D008954:Models, Biological; D010957:Plasmids / Q000235:genetics; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D011156:Population Density; D053038:Quorum Sensing / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers