(752a) Lab Automation for Industrial Biotechnology: High-Throughput Cloning for Genome-Scale over-Expression Library Creation and Parts Assembly

In the post-genomic era, the capability of a regular lab could not meet the growing demand for high-throughput cloning and multiple parts assembly in the field of industrial biotechnology research. The development of laboratory automation make it possible to perform complex molecular biology procedures in large-scale with minimal human labor, error and cost. Here, we have developed and optimized a series of automation procedures with high-throughput robotic platform for cloning all 3057 genes of Corynebacterium glutamicum individually into a controllable over-espression plasmid within a month. The single round cloning accuracy is ~85%. Such genome-scale over-expression library would be an extremely valuable tool for research related to this industrial workhorse strain. Then we applied our automation platform in DNA assembly process and constructed 96 plasmids in one experiment with full combinations of 6 different kinds of biological parts, including 6 replication origins, 4 antibiotic resistance genes and 4 promoters. In the highly competitive industrial biotechnology filed, with further development and optimization, our lab automation platform would significantly reduce labor requirement and enable researchers to design and test novel ideas in a scale that was not possible before.