Crude extract based cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) has emerged as a powerful technology platform for high-throughput protein production and genetic part characterization. Unfortunately, robust preparation of highly active extracts generally requires specialized and costly equipment and can be labor and time intensive. Moreover, cell lysis procedures can be hard to standardize, leading to different extract performance across laboratories. These challenges limit new entrants to the field and new applications, such as comprehensive genome engineering programs to improve extract performance. To address these challenges, we developed a generalizable and easily accessible high-throughput crude extract preparation method for CFPS based on sonication. To validate our approach, we investigated two Escherichia coli strains: BL21 Star™ (DE3) and a K12 MG1655 variant, achieving similar productivity (defined as CFPS yield in g/L) by varying only a few parameters. In addition, we observed identical productivity of cell extracts generated from culture volumes spanning three orders of magnitude (10 mL culture tubes to 10 L fermentation). We anticipate that our rapid and robust extract preparation method will speed-up screening of genomically engineered strains for CFPS applications, make possible highly active extracts from non-model organisms, and promote a more general use of CFPS in synthetic biology and biotechnology.

Cell-free protein synthesis has emerged as a powerful approach for expanding the range of genetically encoded chemistry into proteins. Unfortunately, efforts to site-specifically incorporate multiple non-canonical amino acids into proteins using crude extract-based cell-free systems have been limited by release factor 1 competition. Here we address this limitation by establishing a bacterial cell-free protein synthesis platform based on genomically recoded Escherichia coli lacking release factor 1. This platform was developed by exploiting multiplex genome engineering to enhance extract performance by functionally inactivating negative effectors. Our most productive cell extracts enabled synthesis of 1,780 ± 30 mg/L superfolder green fluorescent protein. Using an optimized platform, we demonstrated the ability to introduce 40 identical p-acetyl-l-phenylalanine residues site specifically into an elastin-like polypeptide with high accuracy of incorporation ( ≥ 98%) and yield (96 ± 3 mg/L). We expect this cell-free platform to facilitate fundamental understanding and enable manufacturing paradigms for proteins with new and diverse chemistries.

Cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) has emerged as a powerful platform for applied biotechnology and synthetic biology, with a range of applications in synthesizing proteins, evolving proteins, and prototyping genetic circuits. To expand the current CFPS repertoire, we report here the development and optimization of a Streptomyces-based CFPS system for the expression of GC-rich genes. By developing a streamlined crude extract preparation protocol and optimizing reaction conditions, we were able to achieve active enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) yields of greater than 50 μg/mL with batch reactions lasting up to 3 h. By adopting a semi-continuous reaction format, the EGFP yield could be increased to 282 ± 8 μg/mL and the reaction time was extended to 48 h. Notably, our extract preparation procedures were robust to multiple Streptomyces lividans and Streptomyces coelicolor strains, although expression yields varied. We show that our optimized Streptomyces lividans system provides benefits when compared to an Escherichia coli-based CFPS system for increasing percent soluble protein expression for four Streptomyces-originated high GC-content genes that are involved in biosynthesis of the nonribosomal peptides tambromycin and valinomycin. Looking forward, we believe that our Streptomyces-based CFPS system will contribute significantly towards efforts to express complex natural product gene clusters (e.g., nonribosomal peptides and polyketides), providing a new avenue for obtaining and studying natural product biosynthesis pathways. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2017;114: 1343-1353. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Site-specific incorporation of non-standard amino acids (NSAAs) into proteins opens the way to novel biological insights and applications in biotechnology. Here, we describe the development of a high yielding cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) platform for NSAA incorporation from crude extracts of genomically recoded Escherichia coli lacking release factor 1. We used genome engineering to construct synthetic organisms that, upon cell lysis, lead to improved extract performance. We targeted five potential negative effectors to be disabled: the nuclease genes rna, rnb, csdA, mazF, and endA. Using our most productive extract from strain MCJ.559 (csdA− endA−), we synthesized 550±40 μg mL−1 of modified superfolder green fluorescent protein containing p-acetyl-l-phenylalanine. This yield was increased to ∼1300 μg mL−1 when using a semicontinuous method. Our work has implications for using whole genome editing for CFPS strain development, expanding the chemistry of biological systems, and cell-free synthetic biology.

Centralized facilities for genetic engineering, or "biofoundries", offer the potential to design organisms to address emerging needs in medicine, agriculture, industry, and defense. The field has seen rapid advances in technology, but it is difficult to gauge current capabilities or identify gaps across projects. To this end, our foundry was assessed via a timed "pressure test", in which 3 months were given to build organisms to produce 10 molecules unknown to us in advance. By applying a diversity of new approaches, we produced the desired molecule or a closely related one for six out of 10 targets during the performance period and made advances toward production of the others as well. Specifically, we increased the titers of 1-hexadecanol, pyrrolnitrin, and pacidamycin D, found novel routes to the enediyne warhead underlying powerful antimicrobials, established a cell-free system for monoterpene production, produced an intermediate toward vincristine biosynthesis, and encoded 7802 individually retrievable pathways to 540 bisindoles in a DNA pool. Pathways to tetrahydrofuran and barbamide were designed and constructed, but toxicity or analytical tools inhibited further progress. In sum, we constructed 1.2 Mb DNA, built 215 strains spanning five species ( Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Escherichia coli, Streptomyces albidoflavus, Streptomyces coelicolor, and Streptomyces albovinaceus), established two cell-free systems, and performed 690 assays developed in-house for the molecules.

Incorporating non-standard amino acids (NSAAs) into proteins enables new chemical properties, new structures, and new functions. In recent years, improvements in cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) systems have opened the way to accurate and efficient incorporation of NSAAs into proteins. The driving force behind this development has been three-fold. First, a technical renaissance has enabled high-yielding (>1 g/L) and long-lasting (>10 h in batch operation) CFPS in systems derived from Escherichia coli. Second, the efficiency of orthogonal translation systems (OTSs) has improved. Third, the open nature of the CFPS platform has brought about an unprecedented level of control and freedom of design. Here, we review recent developments in CFPS platforms designed to precisely incorporate NSAAs. In the coming years, we anticipate that CFPS systems will impact efforts to elucidate structure/function relationships of proteins and to make biomaterials and sequence-defined biopolymers for medical and industrial applications.

The heavy metal content of cosmetics may be a cause for concern in that exposure to these metals is associated with adverse consequences. Thus, the aim of this study was to assess consequences attributed to exposure to heavy metals in cosmetics as determined by non-cancer, cancer, and sensitization risks methodologies. The quantification and exposure assessments of aluminum (Al), chromium (Cr), manganese (Mn), iron (Fe), cobalt (Co), nickel (Ni), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), arsenic (As), lead (Pb), mercury (Hg), cadmium (Cd), antimony (Sb), and titanium (Ti) were performed by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry. The non-cancer risk assessment of Al, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, Sb, and Ti in cosmetic samples resulted in a margin of safety (MOS) greater than 100 or a hazard index (HI) of less than 1. However, the probability of lifetime cancer risk (LCR) resulting from dermal exposure to heavy metals from cosmetics exceeded the acceptable risk levels (LCR > 10). An exposure-based sensitization quantitative risk assessment determined that the ratios of acceptable exposure level to consumers for Ni, Co, Cu, or Hg were above 1, suggesting an absence of skin-sensitizing potential. For an average daily user of lip cosmetics, the estimated intakes of heavy metals were within the acceptable daily intake (ADI). The percentage of heavy users for which metal intakes exceeded ADIs were 20.37% for Pb, 9.26% for Mn, 1.85% for Cr, and 1.85% for Cr, respectively. Data suggested that the heavy metals present in cosmetics do not appear to pose a serious risk to health. However, for heavy users of lip cosmetics, contamination with some heavy metals, such as Pb, Mn, and Cr needs to be minimized.

The mixture of 5-chloro-2-methylisothiazol-3(2H)-one (CMIT) and 2-methylisothiazol-3(2H)-one (MIT), CMIT/ MIT, is a preservative in cosmetics. CMIT/MIT is a highly effective preservative; however, it is also a commonly known skin sensitizer. Therefore, in the present study, a risk assessment for safety management of CMIT/MIT was conducted on products containing 0.0015% of CMIT/MIT, which is the maximum MIT level allowed in current products. The no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) for CMIT/MIT was 2.8 mg/kg bw/day obtained from a two-generation reproductive toxicity test, and the skin sensitization toxicity standard value for CMIT/MIT, or the no expected sensitization induction level (NESIL), was 1.25 µg/cm 2 /day in humans. According to a calculation of body exposure to cosmetics use, the systemic exposure dosage (SED) was calculated as 0.00423 mg/kg bw/day when leave-on and rinse-off products were considered. Additionally, the consumer exposure level (CEL) amounted to 0.77512 µg/cm 2 /day for all representative cosmetics and 0.00584 µg/cm 2 /day for rinse-off products only. As a result, the non-cancer margin of safety (MOS) was calculated as 633, and CMIT/MIT was determined to be safe when all representative cosmetics were evaluated. In addition, the skin sensitization acceptable exposure level (AEL)/CEL was calculated as 0.00538 for all representative cosmetics and 2.14225 for rinse-off products; thus, CMIT/MIT was considered a skin sensitizer when all representative cosmetics were evaluated. Current regulations indicate that CMIT/MIT can only be used at concentrations 0.0015% or less and is prohibited from use in other cosmetics products. According to the results of this risk assessment, the CMIT/MIT regulatory values currently used in cosmetics are evaluated as appropriate.