title: Advances and current limitations in transcript-level control of gene expression.
abstract: Gene expression control is critical to increase production of recombinant proteins, fine-tune metabolic pathways and reliably express synthetic pathways. The importance of transcriptional control seems to be most important in eukaryotic systems. In this review, we highlight recent developments in the field of transcriptional engineering with an emphasis on the opportunities and challenges. We discuss the engineering of 'parts' that influence transcriptional throughput including promoters, terminators, and transcription factors as well as the genetic context of the expression cassette. While great strides have been made in the area, the robustness of these parts has been largely untested. This review highlights the importance of considering robustness in biological systems and the limitations that current synthetic parts possess.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, 2500 Speedway Avenue, Austin, TX 78712, United States.
authors.forename: John M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Leavitt
authors.affiliation: Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, 2500 Speedway Avenue, Austin, TX 78712, United States; McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 200 E Dean Keeton St. Stop C0400, Austin, TX 78712, United States. Electronic address: halper@che.utexas.edu.
authors.forename: Hal S
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Alper
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015870:Gene Expression; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D006801:Humans; D053858:Metabolic Networks and Pathways / Q000235:genetics; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000378:metabolism; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
chemical_list: D014157:Transcription Factors