Developing Synthetic Biology Capabilities in the Fast-Growing Bacterium Vibrio Natriegens

Advancements in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering have expanded our understanding and utility of chiefly a small cadre of model organisms. In order to fully realize the spectrum of existing natural and engineered capabilities, a wider variety of microbes needs to be explored. Recently, the fast-growing bacterium Vibrio natriegens has garnered attention as a host for routine and industrial molecular biology and biotechnology processes. Here we show that in addition to a greatly sped-up workflow, the use of Vibrio natriegens as a synthetic biology chassis allows us to more easily engineer in the metabolic versatility of the other members of the Vibrio genus and exploit specific Vibrio processes (i.e. quorum-sensing induced bioluminescence) for the design of novel sense-and-respond functions. Additionally, we present optimized constructs for chemical and non-chemical gene induction (i.e. optogenetics) and characterize basic engineered circuit behavior in Vibrio natriegens. We anticipate that these developments will allow us to study and utilize a wider variety of sensing mechanisms, degradation and biosynthesis pathways, and other specialized metabolic functions. Overall, our work emphasizes the benefits of the development of synthetic biology capabilities in non-model microbes such as Vibrio natriegens.