Interfacing gene circuits with microelectronics through engineered population dynamics

Abstract

While there has been impressive progress connecting bacterial behavior with electrodes, an attractive observation to facilitate advances in synthetic biology is that the growth of a bacterial colony can be determined from impedance changes over time. Here, we interface synthetic biology with microelectronics through engineered population dynamics that regulate the accumulation of charged metabolites. We demonstrate electrical detection of the bacterial response to heavy metals via a population control circuit. We then implement this approach to a synchronized genetic oscillator where we obtain an oscillatory impedance profile from engineered bacteria. We lastly miniaturize an array of electrodes to form “bacterial integrated circuits” and demonstrate its applicability as an interface with genetic circuits. This approach paves the way for new advances in synthetic biology, analytical chemistry, and microelectronic technologies.

Medical Micro/Nanorobots in Precision Medicine

“…For example, genetically engineered bacteria have been programmed to generate diverse active components, such as magnetic particles, [132,133] gas-filled microstructures, [134,135] therapeutic payloads, [136] or responsive probes. [137] In a nutshell, locally powered microrobots have built-in energy conversion on their active surfaces or exploited the autonomous motility of microorganisms. On the other hand, externally powered microrobots are self-propelled as a result of the interaction between an external field, the robot structure and the media in which they move.…”

“…For example, genetically engineered bacteria have been programmed to generate diverse active components, such as magnetic particles, [ 132,133 ] gas‐filled microstructures, [ 134,135 ] therapeutic payloads, [ 136 ] or responsive probes. [ 137 ]…”

Applications, challenges, and needs for employing synthetic biology beyond the lab

“…Beyond hybrid semiconductor-based platforms, another recent advance involved interfacing cells engineered with a population control genetic circuit with microelectronics for efficient sensing of the circuit output. The platform bypassed the need for an optical output by using cell lysis-mediated impedance measurements 92 . Such an approach has widespread applications such as in heavy-metal sensing, oscillatory synthetic circuits, and hybrid computational device generation.…”

Synthetic biology as driver for the biologization of materials sciences

“…Besides this cell–material interface with optical readout, a recent study used impedance measurements to detect changes in bacterial gene expression [ 254 ]. In this system, the promoter of interest was configured to drive a bacterial lysis gene for inducing cell death.…”