Constructing E.coli cells to act like multicellular organisms

——The engineered evolutionary story

Approaching to this purpose

• One-dimension

• Two-dimension

• Three-dimension

• Mathematical modeling

Do E.coli cells have a head?

One-dimension organization

• The simplest form----two cells

What we need are:

1) A protein located at the anterior side of E.coli cells.

2) A self-recognizable domain that act both as a ligand and a receptor.

The anterior located protein

• Chemoreceptor Complex in Escherichia coli.

Tsr

CheA

CheW

The outer membrane domain can be modified

• By the monomer of leucine zipper or the IgSF domain.

• By the hexomer of histidine.

Two-dimension organization

What we need are:

1) A protein located in the anterior site that can bind to a shaped mode.

2) A membrane protein that is broadly distributed on the surface of E.coli cells.

OmpC protein

• An outer membrane protein.

Cell Division Control

• SulA and MinCD

• Enrolled in SOS.

Three-dimension: the story of evolution

• When cell density increases:

• Expression of modified OmpC via quorum sensing system.

(eg. Inserting constructed OmpC sequence after the promoter of LuxR)

• Randomly bind?

Mathematical modeling

• What distinguishes multicelluar organisms from unicellular ones.

• Evolutionary fitness and trade-off.