Development of synthetic biology devices for iron metabolism research

Constante Pereira, Marco

Development of synthetic biology devices for iron metabolism research

Document Type

Doctoral thesis
Published Version

Author

Constante Pereira, Marco

Director

Isalan, Mark

Publication Date

2011-12-02

Pages

94 p.

Citation

Constante Pereira, M. Development of synthetic biology devices for iron metabolism research. Universitat Pompeu Fabra; 2011. handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/53579

This citation was generated automatically.

Doctoral program

Programa de doctorat en Biomedicina

Abstract

Synthetic biology is a fairly recent field that aims to engineer novel functions in biological systems. In a broad sense synthetic biology encompasses the development of tools that makes the engineering of biology easier. In this thesis I develop a collection of standard DNA parts (Biobricks) that consists of a tool to build custom eukaryotic plasmids. This is not just intended for biology researchers in the field of synthetic biology, but also for more general use. Besides the development of molecular biology tools that facilitate the engineering of biology, synthetic biology researchers have implemented devices that are electronics-like in behavior and have demonstrated the potential of the field for the production of biofuels, pharmaceutics and biosensors. Here I present a sensor of iron regulatory protein activity, based on Biobricks. To demonstrate its use I apply it to the study of a novel reconstituted two cell-type co-culture (BNL CL.2 and RAW 264.7), surrogate for hepatocyte-macrophage communication
La biología sintética es un campo recientemente desarrollado con el objectivo de implementar nuevas funciones en sistemas biológicos. De forma global, la biología sintética incluye el desarrollo de herramientas para facilitar la ingeniería de sistemas biológicos. En diversas publicaciones, investigadores en el campo de la biología sintética han implementado dispositivos que funcionan de forma similar a circuitos electrónicos y han demonstrado el potencial del campo para la producción de biocarburantes, farmaceuticos y biosensores. Para la presente tesis he creado una colección de plasmidos estandarizados (Biobricks) que pueden ser de interés para biólogos fuera del campo da la biología sintética. Además, utilizando estos Biobricks, he creado un sensor de la actividad de las proteínas reguladas por el hierro. Para demonstrar su aplicación, he utilizado el sensor para estudiar un nuevo sistema de co-cultura de dos tipos celulares (BNL CL.2 y RAW 264.7), substituto para la comunicación entre hepatocitos y macrófagos