Project Reference: TRG27-PLA-NP2

Project title: Engineering field-deployable plant gene circuits 

Project outline

As sessile organisms, plants evolved the ability to sense changes in their environments and respond to them by altering their growth, development or metabolism. Thus they are primed to function as real-time, sophisticated environmental monitors.

Synthetic biology applies engineering principles to the construction of genetic circuits to achieve control over biological systems and to endow them with novel functions. By rewiring internal genetic circuitry, plants can be used as smart, self-reporting networks that collect and report information about their environment. This information can be used both to better understand plant responses and for biotechnology applications such as assessing the heath and quality of agricultural systems, and environmental monitoring.

Recent years have seen the development of several genetic biosensors and inducible controllers for plant systems. However, there are still multiple barriers to the field deployment and real-world applicability of plants as 'phytosensors'. The aim of this project is to engineer genetic sensing circuits for the robust detection and integration of multiple signals. Work will focus on (i) incorporating new knowledge about cis-regulatory architecture and cell type specific expression into synthetic regulators and (ii) engineering mobile signalling molecules for indirect activation of genetic circuits across plant organs and (iii) assessing microbial metabolic pathways as robust output signals.

Principal Supervisor

Dr Nicola Patron

Email address: njp56@cam.ac.uk

Department / Partner Institute: Plant Sciences

Website: https://www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/research/groups/plant-molecular-engineering

BBSRC strategic theme

Transformative technologies