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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, January 2008, p. 437-445, Vol. 74, No. 2
0099-2240/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.01688-07
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Implications of Rewiring Bacterial Quorum Sensing{triangledown} ,{dagger}

Eric L. Haseltine and Frances H. Arnold*

Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering 210-41, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125

Received 23 July 2007/ Accepted 13 November 2007

Bacteria employ quorum sensing, a form of cell-cell communication, to sense changes in population density and regulate gene expression accordingly. This work investigated the rewiring of one quorum-sensing module, the lux circuit from the marine bacterium Vibrio fischeri. Steady-state experiments demonstrate that rewiring the network architecture of this module can yield graded, threshold, and bistable gene expression as predicted by a mathematical model. The experiments also show that the native lux operon is most consistent with a threshold, as opposed to a bistable, response. Each of the rewired networks yielded functional population sensors at biologically relevant conditions, suggesting that this operon is particularly robust. These findings (i) permit prediction of the behaviors of quorum-sensing operons in bacterial pathogens and (ii) facilitate forward engineering of synthetic gene circuits.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering 210-41, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125. Phone: (626) 395-4162. Fax: (626) 568-8743. E-mail: frances{at}cheme.caltech.edu

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 26 November 2007.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://aem.asm.org/.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, January 2008, p. 437-445, Vol. 74, No. 2
0099-2240/08/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.01688-07
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





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