title: Butyrolactone signalling circuits for synthetic biology.
abstract: Signalling circuits based on quorum sensing mechanisms have been popular tools for synthetic biology. Recent advances in our understanding of the analogous systems regulating antibiotics production in soil bacteria suggest that these might provide useful complementary tools to increase the complexity of possible circuit designs. Here we discuss the diversity of these natural circuits, which use γ-butyrolactones (GBLs) as their main inter-cellular signal, highlighting the range of new building blocks they could provide, as well as a number of exciting recent applications of GBL-based circuits in heterologous systems. We conclude by presenting examples of the novel circuit complexity that could become accessible through the use of GBL-based designs.
authors.affiliation: Manchester Centre for Synthetic Biology of Fine and Speciality Chemicals (SYNBIOCHEM), Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, 131 Princess Street, Manchester M1 7DN, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Biarnes-Carrera
authors.affiliation: Manchester Centre for Synthetic Biology of Fine and Speciality Chemicals (SYNBIOCHEM), Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, 131 Princess Street, Manchester M1 7DN, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Rainer
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Breitling
authors.affiliation: Manchester Centre for Synthetic Biology of Fine and Speciality Chemicals (SYNBIOCHEM), Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, 131 Princess Street, Manchester M1 7DN, United Kingdom. Electronic address: eriko.takano@manchester.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Eriko
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Takano
mesh_terms: D015107:4-Butyrolactone / Q000378:metabolism*; D000818:Animals; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000378:metabolism*; D039301:Computers, Molecular; D006801:Humans; D015398:Signal Transduction; D013302:Streptomyces / Q000378:metabolism*; D058615:Synthetic Biology / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D015107:4-Butyrolactone