Part:BBa_K2500010
AND Gate A: Synthetic Promoter Responsive to LldR and LuxR
The AND gate integrates two signals, namely the presence of high L-lactate concentrations and high bacterial cell density (qorum sensing) and regulates the effector functions of CATE. It allows our engineered bacteria to autonomously decide whether they are currently located in tumor tissue or not.
In the absence of high concentrations of L-lactate, LldR inhibitor proteins bind to the operator sites O1 and O2 surrounding the pLux promoter leading to the formation of a DNA loop. The pLux promoter is sequestered and inaccessible for transcriptional activation by the quorum sensing components.
Sequence and Features
- 10COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[10]
- 12COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[12]
- 21COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[21]
- 23COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[23]
- 25COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[25]
- 1000COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[1000]
Usage and Biology
Input 1: L-Lactate
Excessive production of lactate even under normoxic conditions1 is a common feature of cancer cells due to the well-known Warburg effect, which is why we selected this marker as one of the two inputs integrated by our AND gate. LldP is a L-lactate permease transporting L-lactate across the bacterial membrane. At low lactate concentrations, lldR repressor proteins bind the two operator sequences O1 and O2 surrounding the pLux quorum sensing promoter and oligomerize. The oligomerization of bound lldR proteins leads to the formation of a DNA-loop which sequesters the pLux promoter, making it inaccessible for transcription as depicted in Figure 2.
Input 2: AHL (quorum sensing)
Quorum sensing allows bacteria to restrict the expression of certain genes to high bacterial cell densities. N-Acyl homoserine lactone (AHL) is a bacterial messenger molecule which is constantly produced at very low levels by LuxI, diffuses across cell membranes and binds transcriptional activator LuxR. The higher the cell density, the higher the concentration of AHL present in the surrounding of each cell. The AHL:LuxR complex together activate transcription of genes positioned downstream of pLux.
CATE is encoded in E. coli Nissle which has the intrinsic ability to survive and home in tumors.2 3 Therefore, an accumulation of bacteria is expected only within tumor cells which is why we chose cell density as the second input. In addition, the integration of quorum sensing also ensures that a sufficient and therefore deadly amount of bacteria carrying the cytotoxic agent have accumulated within the tumor, lowering the incidences of drug resistance due to the incomplete elimination of the tumor.
In conclusion, a combination of high concentrations of lactate and AHL is a unique molecular pattern that should only occur in tumor tissue and therefore represents the only site which can unlock the full cytotoxic capabilities of CATE.
Genetic design
We reasoned that flanking the pLux promoter with O1 and O2 should result in an AND-gate behavior and relied on the previously characterized parts BBa_K1847007 (O1-pconst-O2), BBa_R0062 (plux) and BBa_C0062 (LuxR).
In design A of the AND gate, we adapted the architecture of BBa_K1847007. The Anderson promoter was exchanged with the pLux promoter such that a) the -35 and -10 regions of the new promoter were at the same position as that of the original one and that b) the total distance between O1 and O2 was kept the same as in the original part.
Figure 3: AND gate design A. The promoter architecture was adapted from BBa_K1847007.
Characterization
We determined the dose-response behavior of our AND gates to the two inducers AHL and L-lactate and in order to assess whether our designs would be capable to distinguish healthy and tumor tissue with respect to lactate and expected AHL concentrations.
Two plasmids, a regulator plasmid and an actuator plasmid encoding AND-gate and sGFP, were transformed into E. coli TOP10 as shown in Figure 4. Exponential-phase cultures were induced in microtiter plates with combinations of 8 different AHL and 8 different L-lactate concentrations and analyzed after 5.5 hours growth in the plate. A detailed protocol is available at Protocols
All our synthetic AND gates increase the production of sGFP with increasing inducer concentrations. Hence, the highest level of activation coincides with the highest amounts of both inducers. No activation is observed at low and intermediary concentrations of inducers.
Modeling
AND gate activation modelGiven our experimental results, we created a new model which considers the leakiness of both inputs, L-lactate and AHL, separately instead of combining them into a global leakiness to fit our model better to reality.
Fit of the AND gate promoter response
From the experimental data of the hybrid promoter response, we could fit four parameters of our model: both leakinesses of our hybrid promoters with regard to LuxR-AHL and lactate, and both half-activation concentrations of LuxR-AHL and lactate.
From our statistically significant fit and under the assumptions made, we were able to determine the following parameters for the AND gate:
Summary
- Our AND gate promoters allow CATE to distinguish levels of lactate and AHL in healthy tissue to those in tumor tissue
- AND gate A exhibits intermediary levels of leakiness
- We created a new model which realistically describes the behavior of the AND gate
References
1. F. Hirschhaeuser et al. "Lactate: a metabolic key player in cancer." Cancer Research (2011): 6921-69252. Y. Zhang et al. "Escherichia coli Nissle 1917 Targets and Restrains Mouse B16 Melanoma and 4T1 Breast Tumors through Expression of Azurin Protein" Applied and Environmental Microbiology (2012): 7603–7610
3. J. Stritzker et al. "Tumor-specific colonization, tissue distribution, and gene induction by probiotic Escherichia coli Nissle 1917 in live mice." International Journal of Medical Microbiology (2007): 151-162
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