Abstract

Synthetic biology is a developing area of research that focuses on using principals of engineering to design and fabricate artificial biological pathways or to redesign natural systems. For synthetic biology to achieve its full potential there is a growing need for improved and more flexible gene regulatory mechanisms. Post-transcriptional switches can potentially provide faster protein translation responses to a stimulus than traditional transcriptional switches, an important consideration for the expression of proteins that are deleterious to the host. Previously, we have developed a modular post-transcriptional regulatory system based on the interaction of an sRNA and its cognate mRNA. The work presented in this thesis describes the further development and optimisation of the system, including an in vivo fluoroplate assay to test the efficacy of the switch. Specifically, repression of a GFPLVA reporter gene was achieved via co-expression with a modified sRNA, MicAstab. To relieve repression, a range of locked nucleic acid (LNA) and polypeptide nucleic acid (PNA) nucleic acid mimics were tested in vivo and in vitro. This work starts the process of providing a novel system for synthetic control of gene expression at a post-transcriptional level.

Course: Master of Philosophy - MPhil

Date Deposited: 2018-01-10

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis13105.html