All Outputs (15)

Synthetic yeast chromosome XI design provides a testbed for the study of extrachromosomal circular DNA dynamics (2023)
Journal Article
Blount, B. A., Lu, X., Driessen, M. R. M., Jovicevic, D., Sanchez, M. I., Ciurkot, K., Zhao, Y., Lauer, S., McKiernan, R. M., Gowers, G.-O. F., Sweeney, F., Fanfani, V., Lobzaev, E., Palacios-Flores, K., Walker, R. S. K., Hesketh, A., Cai, J., Oliver, S. G., Cai, Y., Stracquadanio, G., …Ellis, T. (2023). Synthetic yeast chromosome XI design provides a testbed for the study of extrachromosomal circular DNA dynamics. Cell Genomics, 3(11), Article 100418. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xgen.2023.100418

We describe construction of the synthetic yeast chromosome XI (synXI) and reveal the effects of redesign at non-coding DNA elements. The 660-kb synthetic yeast genome project (Sc2.0) chromosome was assembled from synthesized DNA fragments before CRIS... Read More about Synthetic yeast chromosome XI design provides a testbed for the study of extrachromosomal circular DNA dynamics.

Design, construction, and functional characterization of a tRNA neochromosome in yeast (2023)
Journal Article
Schindler, D., Walker, R. S., Jiang, S., Brooks, A. N., Wang, Y., Müller, C. A., Cockram, C., Luo, Y., García, A., Schraivogel, D., Mozziconacci, J., Pena, N., Assari, M., Sánchez Olmos, M. D. C., Zhao, Y., Ballerini, A., Blount, B. A., Cai, J., Ogunlana, L., Liu, W., …Cai, Y. (2023). Design, construction, and functional characterization of a tRNA neochromosome in yeast. Cell, 186(24), 5237-5253.e22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2023.10.015

Here, we report the design, construction, and characterization of a tRNA neochromosome, a designer chromosome that functions as an additional, de novo counterpart to the native complement of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Intending to address one of the c... Read More about Design, construction, and functional characterization of a tRNA neochromosome in yeast.

Trimming the genomic fat: minimising and re-functionalising genomes using synthetic biology (2023)
Journal Article
Xu, X., Meier, F., Blount, B. A., Pretorius, I. S., Ellis, T., Paulsen, I. T., & Williams, T. C. (2023). Trimming the genomic fat: minimising and re-functionalising genomes using synthetic biology. Nature Communications, 14(1), Article 1984. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-37748-7

Naturally evolved organisms typically have large genomes that enable their survival and growth under various conditions. However, the complexity of genomes often precludes our complete understanding of them, and limits the success of biotechnological... Read More about Trimming the genomic fat: minimising and re-functionalising genomes using synthetic biology.

Synthetic bacterial genome upgraded for viral defence and biocontainment (2023)
Journal Article
Blount, B. A. (2023). Synthetic bacterial genome upgraded for viral defence and biocontainment. Nature, 615(7953), 592-594. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00702-0

Design, Construction, and Functional Characterization of a tRNA Neochromosome in Yeast (2022)
Preprint / Working Paper
Schindler, D., Walker, R. S., Jiang, S., Brooks, A. N., Wang, Y., Müller, C. A., Cockram, C., Luo, Y., García, A., Schraivogel, D., Mozziconacci, J., Blount, B. A., Cai, J., Ogunlana, L., Liu, W., Jönsson, K., Abramczyk, D., Garcia-Ruiz, E., Turowski, T. W., Swidah, R., …Cai, Y. Design, Construction, and Functional Characterization of a tRNA Neochromosome in Yeast

Here we report the design, construction and characterization of a tRNA neochromosome, a designer chromosome that functions as an additional, de novo counterpart to the native complement of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Intending to address one of the cen... Read More about Design, Construction, and Functional Characterization of a tRNA Neochromosome in Yeast.

Synthetic yeast chromosome XI design enables extrachromosomal circular DNA formation on demand (2022)
Preprint / Working Paper
Blount, B. A., Lu, X., Driessen, M. R. M., Jovicevic, D., Sanchez, M. I., Ciurkot, K., Zhao, Y., Lauer, S., McKiernan, R. M., Gowers, G.-O. F., Sweeney, F., Fanfani, V., Lobzaev, E., Palacios-Flores, K., Walker, R., Hesketh, A., Oliver, S. G., Cai, Y., Stracquadanio, G., Mitchell, L. A., …Ellis, T. Synthetic yeast chromosome XI design enables extrachromosomal circular DNA formation on demand

We describe construction of the 660 kilobase synthetic yeast chromosome XI (synXI) and reveal how synthetic redesign of non-coding DNA elements impact the cell. To aid construction from synthesized 5 to 10 kilobase DNA fragments, we implemented CRISP... Read More about Synthetic yeast chromosome XI design enables extrachromosomal circular DNA formation on demand.

Construction of an Escherichia coli genome with fewer codons sets records (2019)
Journal Article
Blount, B. A., & Ellis, T. (2019). Construction of an Escherichia coli genome with fewer codons sets records. Nature, 569(7757), 492-494. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01584-x

© 2019, Nature. The biggest synthetic genome so far has been made, with a smaller set of amino-acid-encoding codons than usual — raising the prospect of encoding proteins that contain unnatural amino-acid residues.

The Synthetic Genome Summer Course (2018)
Journal Article
Blount, B., & Ellis, T. (2018). The Synthetic Genome Summer Course. Synthetic Biology, 3(1), Article ysy020. https://doi.org/10.1093/synbio/ysy020

Rapid host strain improvement by in vivo rearrangement of a synthetic yeast chromosome (2018)
Journal Article
Blount, B. A., Gowers, G.-O. F., Ho, J. C. H., Ledesma-Amaro, R., Jovicevic, D., McKiernan, R. M., Xie, Z. X., Li, B. Z., Yuan, Y. J., & Ellis, T. (2018). Rapid host strain improvement by in vivo rearrangement of a synthetic yeast chromosome. Nature Communications, 9(1), Article 1932. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03143-w

© 2018 The Author(s). Synthetic biology tools, such as modular parts and combinatorial DNA assembly, are routinely used to optimise the productivity of heterologous metabolic pathways for biosynthesis or substrate utilisation, yet it is well establis... Read More about Rapid host strain improvement by in vivo rearrangement of a synthetic yeast chromosome.

Biosynthesis of the antibiotic nonribosomal peptide penicillin in baker’s yeast (2017)
Journal Article
Awan, A. R., Blount, B. A., Bell, D. J., Shaw, W. M., Ho, J. C., McKiernan, R. M., & Ellis, T. (2017). Biosynthesis of the antibiotic nonribosomal peptide penicillin in baker’s yeast. Nature Communications, 8, Article 15202. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15202

© The Author(s) 2017. Fungi are a valuable source of enzymatic diversity and therapeutic natural products including antibiotics. Here we engineer the baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to produce and secrete the antibiotic penicillin, a beta-lact... Read More about Biosynthesis of the antibiotic nonribosomal peptide penicillin in baker’s yeast.

Sensing the Right Time to Be Productive (2016)
Journal Article
Ceroni, F., Blount, B. A., & Ellis, T. (2016). Sensing the Right Time to Be Productive. Cell Systems, 3(2), 116-117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cels.2016.08.004

Engineered E. coli can be made to autonomously switch from growth to production by a modular two-gate system that reduces the burden of biosynthesis.

GC preps: Fast and easy extraction of stable yeast genomic DNA (2016)
Journal Article
Blount, B. A., Driessen, M. R., & Ellis, T. (2016). GC preps: Fast and easy extraction of stable yeast genomic DNA. Scientific Reports, 6, Article 26863. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep26863

Existing yeast genomic DNA extraction methods are not ideally suited to extensive screening of colonies by PCR, due to being too lengthy, too laborious or yielding poor quality DNA and inconsistent results. We developed the GC prep method as a soluti... Read More about GC preps: Fast and easy extraction of stable yeast genomic DNA.

Total synthesis of a eukaryotic chromosome: Redesigning and SCRaMbLE-ing yeast (2014)
Journal Article
Jovicevic, D., Blount, B. A., & Ellis, T. (2014). Total synthesis of a eukaryotic chromosome: Redesigning and SCRaMbLE-ing yeast. BioEssays, 36(9), 855-860. https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.201400086

A team of US researchers recently reported the design, assembly and in vivo functionality of a synthetic chromosome III (SynIII) for the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The synthetic chromosome was assembled bottom-up from DNA oligomers by teams of s... Read More about Total synthesis of a eukaryotic chromosome: Redesigning and SCRaMbLE-ing yeast.

Rational diversification of a promoter providing fine-tuned expression and orthogonal regulation for synthetic biology (2012)
Journal Article
Blount, B. A., Weenink, T., Vasylechko, S., & Ellis, T. (2012). Rational diversification of a promoter providing fine-tuned expression and orthogonal regulation for synthetic biology. PLoS ONE, 7(3), Article e33279. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0033279

Yeast is an ideal organism for the development and application of synthetic biology, yet there remain relatively few well-characterised biological parts suitable for precise engineering of this chassis. In order to address this current need, we prese... Read More about Rational diversification of a promoter providing fine-tuned expression and orthogonal regulation for synthetic biology.

Construction of synthetic regulatory networks in yeast (2012)
Journal Article
Blount, B. A., Weenink, T., & Ellis, T. (2012). Construction of synthetic regulatory networks in yeast. FEBS Letters, 586(15), 2112-2121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.febslet.2012.01.053

Yeast species such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been exploited by humans for millennia and so it is therefore unsurprising that they are attractive cells to re-engineer for industrial use. Despite many beneficial traits yeast has for synthetic bi... Read More about Construction of synthetic regulatory networks in yeast.