Synthetic Biology: An Emerging Approach for Strain Engineering

This chapter provides an update on the field to complement numerous reviews of synthetic biology. It demonstrates synthetic biology as a paradigm for bottom-up engineering, starting from single gene-expression control, synthetic pathway or circuit design, to cell-cell communication engineering (microbial communities). The chapter discusses how the fundamental components of synthetic biology combine to regulate genetic networks and control intercellular interactions, and serves as a useful platform for engineering cells. It discusses recent advances in developing pathway and gene circuit design in synthetic biology with strain engineering as the major application. The chapter focuses on reviewing the early development of gene circuits and discusses the challenges inherent to next-generation synthetic gene networks and their applications. DNA synthesis is a fundamental technology which has rapidly spurred growth in synthetic biology. A major focus in the development of functional and robust modules in synthetic biology is design of gene regulatory circuits at the network level.