Of more immediate practical use to the GARNet community than the technology described here are toolkits presented at the 4th New Phytologist Workshop by Susan Rosser (University of Glasgow) and Keith Saunders (John Innes Centre).
Susan Rosser presented a soon-to-be-published multi-gene assembly kit based on synthetic integrons – ‘Syntegron’. Like existing kits for manipulating DNA, it involves cassettes which top and tail each gene or section of DNA. Unlike other kits, it will be open source and allows for many genes, even a whole pathway, to be assembled, shuffled if required, and expressed. It has been demonstrated to work on the 5-gene violacein pathway which was put, complete and functioning, into E. coli in just 5 days. I’m pretty sure this protocol will be a hit, and it will be an excellent method for a group to use when they try out synthetic biology for the first time.
Keith Saunders presented another gene transfer method, the CPMV-HT expression system which won the BBSRC Innovator of the Year award for Professor George Lomonossoff and Dr Frank Sainsbury. Their system is based on empty virus-like particles (eVLPs), made from modified cow pea mosaic virus (CPMV). (more…)
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