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Synthetic biology has progressed by leaps and bounds since researchers first induced E. coli to make human insulin in the 1970s. Today, biological engineers coax microorganisms to perform numerous complex chemistries, such as breaking down plant material for biofuels. However, scientists still rely on a limited complement of components to control their synthetic circuits.
A team of researchers has developed a way to turn off almost any gene in E. coli. Their approach: borrow a trick from nature to achieve human goals. The team modified proteins called TALEs to make tools that seek and silence diverse arrays of genes. TALE proteins come from bacteria that normally infect plants—the bugs typically inject TALEs into plant cells to make them more susceptible to infection. This image is a 3-D model of the TALE protein (green) wrapped around target DNA sequence.Image credit: Mark Politz, University of Wisconsin – Madison
