| 1. |
- Ferreira, Raphael, 1990, et al.
(författare)
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Metabolic engineering of Saccharomyces cerevisiae for overproduction of triacylglycerols
- 2018
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Ingår i: Metabolic Engineering Communications. - : Elsevier BV. - 2214-0301. ; 6, s. 22-27
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Triacylglycerols (TAGs) are valuable versatile compounds that can be used as metabolites for nutrition and health, as well as feedstocks for biofuel production. Although Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the favored microbial cell factory for industrial production of biochemicals, it does not produce large amounts of lipids and TAGs comprise only ~1% of its cell dry weight. Here, we engineered S. cerevisiae to reorient its metabolism for overproduction of TAGs, by regulating lipid droplet associated-proteins involved in TAG synthesis and hydrolysis. We implemented a push-and-pull strategy by overexpressing genes encoding a deregulated acetyl-CoA carboxylase, ACC1 S659A/S1157A (ACC1**), as well as the last two steps of TAG formation: phosphatidic phosphatase (PAH1) and diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGA1), ultimately leading to 129 mg∙gCDW −1 of TAGs. Disruption of TAG lipase genes TGL3, TGL4, TGL5 and sterol acyltransferase gene ARE1 increased the TAG content to 218 mg∙gCDW −1 . Further disruption of the beta-oxidation by deletion of POX1, as well as glycerol-3-phosphate utilization through deletion of GUT2, did not affect TAGs levels. Finally, disruption of the peroxisomal fatty acyl-CoA transporter PXA1 led to accumulation of 254 mg∙gCDW −1 . The TAG levels achieved here are the highest titer reported in S. cerevisiae, reaching 27.4% of the maximum theoretical yield in minimal medium with 2% glucose. This work shows the potential of using an industrially established and robust yeast species for high level lipid production.
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| 2. |
- Ferreira, Raphael, 1990, et al.
(författare)
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Model-Assisted Fine-Tuning of Central Carbon Metabolism in Yeast through dCas9-Based Regulation
- 2019
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Ingår i: ACS Synthetic Biology. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 2161-5063. ; 8:11, s. 2457-2463
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Engineering Saccharomyces cerevisiae for industrial-scale production of valuable chemicals involves extensive modulation of its metabolism. Here, we identified novel gene expression fine-tuning set-ups to enhance endogenous metabolic fluxes toward increasing levels of acetyl-CoA and malonyl-CoA. dCas9-based transcriptional regulation was combined together with a malonyl-CoA responsive intracellular biosensor to select for beneficial set-ups. The candidate genes for screening were predicted using a genome-scale metabolic model, and a gRNA library targeting a total of 168 selected genes was designed. After multiple rounds of fluorescence-activated cell sorting and library sequencing, the gRNAs that were functional and increased flux toward malonyl-CoA were assessed for their efficiency to enhance 3-hydroxypropionic acid (3-HP) production. 3-HP production was significantly improved upon fine-tuning genes involved in providing malonyl-CoA precursors, cofactor supply, as well as chromatin remodeling.
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| 3. |
- Ferreira, Raphael, 1990, et al.
(författare)
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Multiplexed CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing and Gene Regulation Using Csy4 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
- 2018
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Ingår i: ACS Synthetic Biology. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 2161-5063. ; 7:1, s. 10-15
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) technology has greatly accelerated the field of strain engineering. However, insufficient efforts have been made toward developing robust multiplexing tools in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Here, we exploit the RNA processing capacity of the bacterial endoribonuclease Csy4 from Pseudomonas aeruginosa, to generate multiple gRNAs from a single transcript for genome editing and gene interference applications in S. cerevisiae. In regards to genome editing, we performed a quadruple deletion of FAA1, FAA4, POX1 and TES1 reaching 96% efficiency out of 24 colonies tested. Then, we used this system to efficiently transcriptionally regulate the three genes, OLE1, HMG1 and ACS1. Thus, we demonstrate that multiplexed genome editing and gene regulation can be performed in a fast and effective manner using Csy4.
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| 4. |
- Ferreira, Raphael, 1990, et al.
(författare)
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Redirection of lipid flux toward phospholipids in yeast increases fatty acid turnover and secretion
- 2018
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 115:6, s. 1262-1267
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Bio-based production of fatty acids and fatty acid-derived products can enable sustainable substitution of petroleum-derived fuels and chemicals. However, developing new microbial cell factories for producing high levels of fatty acids requires extensive engineering of lipid metabolism, a complex and tightly regulated metabolic network. Here we generated a Saccharomyces cerevisiae platform strain with a simplified lipid metabolism network with high-level production of free fatty acids (FFAs) due to redirected fatty acid metabolism and reduced feedback regulation. Deletion of the main fatty acid activation genes (the first step in β-oxidation), main storage lipid formation genes, and phosphatidate phosphatase genes resulted in a constrained lipid metabolic network in which fatty acid flux was directed to a large extent toward phospholipids. This resulted in simultaneous increases of phospholipids by up to 2.8- fold and of FFAs by up to 40-fold compared with wild-type levels. Further deletion of phospholipase genes PLB1 and PLB2 resulted in a 46% decrease in FFA levels and 105% increase in phospholipid levels, suggesting that phospholipid hydrolysis plays an important role in FFA production when phospholipid levels are increased. The multiple deletion mutant generated allowed for a study of fatty acid dynamics in lipid metabolism and represents a platform strain with interesting properties that provide insight into the future development of lipid-related cell factories.
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| 5. |
- Skrekas, Christos, 1990, et al.
(författare)
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Fluorescence-Activated Cell Sorting as a Tool for Recombinant Strain Screening
- 2022
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Ingår i: Methods in Molecular Biology. - New York, NY : Springer US. - 1940-6029 .- 1064-3745. ; , s. 39-57
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Metabolic engineering of microbial cells is the discipline of optimizing microbial metabolism to enable and improve the production of target molecules ranging from biofuels and chemical building blocks to high-value pharmaceuticals. The advances in genetic engineering have eased the construction of highly engineered microbial strains and the generation of genetic libraries. Intracellular metabolite-responsive biosensors facilitate high-throughput screening of these libraries by connecting the levels of a metabolite of interest to a fluorescence output. Fluorescent-activated cell sorting (FACS) enables the isolation of highly fluorescent single cells and thus genotypes that produce higher levels of the metabolite of interest. Here, we describe a high-throughput screening method for recombinant yeast strain screening based on intracellular biosensors and FACS.
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| 6. |
- Teixeira, Paulo, 1990, et al.
(författare)
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Dynamic regulation of fatty acid pools for improved production of fatty alcohols in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
- 2017
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Ingår i: Microbial Cell Factories. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1475-2859. ; 16:1, s. 45-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: In vivo production of fatty acid-derived chemicals in Saccharomyces cerevisiae requires strategies to increase the intracellular supply of either acyl-CoA or free fatty acids (FFAs), since their cytosolic concentrations are quite low in a natural state for this organism. Deletion of the fatty acyl-CoA synthetase genes FAA1 and FAA4 is an effective and straightforward way to disable re-activation of fatty acids and drastically increase FFA levels. However, this strategy causes FFA over-accumulation and consequential release to the extracellular medium, which results in a significant loss of precursors that compromises the process yield. In the present study, we aimed for dynamic expression of the fatty acyl-CoA synthetase gene FAA1 to regulate FFA and acyl-CoA pools in order to improve fatty alcohol production yields. Results: We analyzed the metabolite dynamics of a faa1 Delta faa4 Delta strain constitutively expressing a carboxylic acid reductase from Mycobacterium marinum (MmCAR) and an endogenous alcohol dehydrogenase (Adh5) for in vivo production of fatty alcohols from FFAs. We observed production of fatty acids and fatty alcohols with different rates leading to high levels of FFAs not being converted to the final product. To address the issue, we expressed the MmCAR + Adh5 pathway together with a fatty acyl-CoA reductase from Marinobacter aquaeolei to enable fatty alcohol production simultaneously from FFA and acyl-CoA, respectively. Then, we expressed FAA1 under the control of different promoters in order to balance FFA and acyl-CoA interconversion rates and to achieve optimal levels for conversion to fatty alcohols. Expressing FAA1 under control of the HXT1 promoter led to an increased accumulation of fatty alcohols per OD600 up to 41% while FFA levels were decreased by 63% compared with the control strain. Conclusions: Fine-tuning and dynamic regulation of key metabolic steps can be used to improve cell factories when the rates of downstream reactions are limiting. This avoids loss of precursors to the extracellular medium or to competing reactions, hereby potentially improving the process yield. The study also provides knowledge of a key point of fatty acid regulation and homeostasis, which can be used for future design of cells factories for fatty acid-derived chemicals.
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| 7. |
- Bergenholm, David, 1987, et al.
(författare)
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Rational gRNA design based on transcription factor binding data
- 2021
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Ingår i: Synthetic Biology. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 2397-7000 .- 1939-7267. ; 6:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 system has become a standard tool in many genome engineering endeavors. The endonuclease-deficient version of Cas9 (dCas9) is also a powerful programmable tool for gene regulation. In this study, we made use of Saccharomyces cerevisiae transcription factor (TF) binding data to obtain a better understanding of the interplay between TF binding and binding of dCas9 fused to an activator domain, VPR. More specifically, we targeted dCas9-VPR toward binding sites of Gcr1-Gcr2 and Tye7 present in several promoters of genes encoding enzymes engaged in the central carbon metabolism. From our data, we observed an upregulation of gene expression when dCas9-VPR was targeted next to a TF binding motif, whereas a downregulation or no change was observed when dCas9 was bound on a TF motif. This suggests a steric competition between dCas9 and the specific TF. Integrating TF binding data, therefore, proved to be useful for designing guide RNAs for CRISPR interference or CRISPR activation applications.
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| 8. |
- Ferraro, Gino B., et al.
(författare)
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Fatty acid synthesis is required for breast cancer brain metastasis
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nature Cancer. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2662-1347. ; 2:4, s. 414-428
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Brain metastases are refractory to therapies that control systemic disease in patients with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-positive breast cancer and the brain microenvironment contributes to this therapy resistance. Nutrient availability can vary across tissues, therefore metabolic adaptations required for brain metastatic breast cancer growth may introduce liabilities that can be exploited for therapy. Here we assessed how metabolism differs between breast tumors in brain versus extracranial sites and found that fatty acid synthesis is elevated in breast tumors growing in the brain. We determine that this phenotype is an adaptation to decreased lipid availability in the brain relative to other tissues, resulting in site-specific dependency on fatty acid synthesis for breast tumors growing at this site. Genetic or pharmacological inhibition of fatty acid synthase reduces human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-positive breast tumor growth in the brain, demonstrating that differences in nutrient availability across metastatic sites can result in targetable metabolic dependencies.
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| 9. |
- Ferreira, Raphael, 1990, et al.
(författare)
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Advancing biotechnology with CRISPR/Cas9: recent applications and patent landscape
- 2018
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Ingår i: Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1367-5435 .- 1476-5535. ; 45:7, s. 467-480
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) is poised to become one of the key scientific discoveries of the twenty-first century. Originating from prokaryotic and archaeal immune systems to counter phage invasions, CRISPR-based applications have been tailored for manipulating a broad range of living organisms. From the different elucidated types of CRISPR mechanisms, the type II system adapted from Streptococcus pyogenes has been the most exploited as a tool for genome engineering and gene regulation. In this review, we describe the different applications of CRISPR/Cas9 technology in the industrial biotechnology field. Next, we detail the current status of the patent landscape, highlighting its exploitation through different companies, and conclude with future perspectives of this technology.
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| 10. |
- Ferreira, Raphael, 1990
(författare)
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Advancing CRISPR technologies to engineer yeast metabolism
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The advent of genetic engineering tools has initiated an era of manipulating microorganisms for the production of valuable compounds for our society. Precise engineering of these microbes commonly requires introducing genetic modifications such as gene deletion, overexpression, and accurate regulation in order to enhance the production of the compound of interest. In this context, the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)/Cas9 technology, adapted from the prokaryotic adaptive immune system, has revolutionized our ability to manipulate a broad range of living organisms. In contrast to other methods, this technology works like a molecular pair of scissors (Cas9) which is guided by a programmable RNA (gRNA) molecule binding at a specific location in the DNA. The programmability and time-efficiency offered by this technology have in the recent years been successfully exploited in rewiring the metabolic network to enhance the production of metabolites used in various areas of industrial biotechnology. In this thesis, I present several studies applying the technological diversity provided by CRISPR in the context of building efficient yeast cell factories for the production of oleochemicals -sustainable substitutes for plant derived lipids. Since oleochemicals derive from lipid products, the main engineering strategies presented essentially focus on fatty acid metabolism and its precursors. First, we exploited CRISPR/Cas9 endonuclease capacity to extensively remodel yeast lipid metabolism. We showed that the disruption of several metabolic fluxes allows to overcome the main limiting steps in fatty acid biosynthesis and favors the production of free fatty acids and triacylglycerols, two important precursors for the production of oleochemicals. Second, we harnessed the ability to precisely regulate genes using the catalytically deactivated form of the Cas9 protein (dCas9) coupled to transcription factors for fine-tuning the expression of genes involved in lipid biogenesis. Additionally, we proposed a framework for dCas9-based applications based on computational techniques for predicting key genes potentially favoring the production of yeast endogenous metabolites. Finally, we expanded the CRISPR repertoire by building new tools to accelerate yeast cell factory design. We exploited a Type I CRISPR-associated endoribonuclease for multiplex genome engineering and transcriptional regulation via processing an RNA transcript into multiple gRNAs, and we developed a computational tool for designing gRNAs targeting multiple loci at once. In summary, the work presented in this thesis provides various ways to efficiently engineer yeast metabolism by exploiting the diversity of CRISPR technologies, as well as new tools to the community for future engineering strategies.
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| 11. |
- Ferreira, Raphael, 1990, et al.
(författare)
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Exploiting off-targeting in guide-RNAs for CRISPR systems for simultaneous editing of multiple genes
- 2017
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Ingår i: FEBS Letters. - : Wiley. - 1873-3468 .- 0014-5793. ; 591:20, s. 3288-3295
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Bioinformatics tools to design guide-RNAs (gRNAs) in Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats systems mostly focused on minimizing off-targeting to enhance efficacy of genome editing. However, there are circumstances in which off-targeting might be desirable to target multiple genes simultaneously with a single gRNA. We termed these gRNAs as promiscuous gRNAs. Here, we present a computational workflow to identify promiscuous gRNAs that putatively bind to the region of interest for a defined list of genes in a genome. We experimentally validated two promiscuous gRNA for gene deletion, one targeting FAA1 and FAA4 and one targeting PLB1 and PLB2, thus demonstrating that multiplexed genome editing through design of promiscuous gRNA can be performed in a time and cost-effective manner.
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| 12. |
- Ferreira, Raphael, 1990, et al.
(författare)
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Photoswitch kinase inhibitors
- 2014
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Ingår i: Purinergic Signalling. - 1573-9538 .- 1573-9546. ; 10:4, s. 767-768
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 13. |
- Ferreira, Raphael, 1990, et al.
(författare)
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Tackling Cancer with Yeast-Based Technologies
- 2019
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Ingår i: Trends in Biotechnology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0167-7799 .- 1879-3096. ; 37:6, s. 592-603
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- The ability to precisely engineer yeast, coupled with its genetic and metabolic similarity to tumor cells, has enabled researchers to use this organism in cancer research. Here we review advances that leveraged yeast as a model organism for studying cancer biology, including the investigation of tumorigenic mechanisms, development of advanced technologies for drug discovery, production of anticancer drugs on an industrial scale, and delivering the next generation of immunotherapies.
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| 14. |
- Gatto, Francesco, 1987, et al.
(författare)
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Pan-cancer analysis of the metabolic reaction network
- 2020
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Ingår i: Metabolic Engineering. - : Elsevier BV. - 1096-7176 .- 1096-7184. ; 57, s. 51-62
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Metabolic reprogramming is considered a hallmark of malignant transformation. However, it is not clear whether the network of metabolic reactions expressed by cancers of different origin differ from each other or from normal human tissues. In this study, we reconstructed functional and connected genome-scale metabolic models for 917 primary tumor samples across 13 types based on the probability of expression for 3765 reference metabolic genes in the sample. This network-centric approach revealed that tumor metabolic networks are largely similar in terms of accounted reactions, despite diversity in the expression of the associated genes. On average, each network contained 4721 reactions, of which 74% were core reactions (present in >95% of all models). Whilst 99.3% of the core reactions were classified as housekeeping also in normal tissues, we identified reactions catalyzed by ARG2, RHAG, SLC6 and SLC16 family gene members, and PTGS1 and PTGS2 as core exclusively in cancer. These findings were subsequently replicated in an independent validation set of 3388 genome-scale metabolic models. The remaining 26% of the reactions were contextual reactions. Their inclusion was dependent in one case (GLS2) on the absence of TP53 mutations and in 94.6% of cases on differences in cancer types. This dependency largely resembled differences in expression patterns in the corresponding normal tissues, with some exceptions like the presence of the NANP-encoded reaction in tumors not from the female reproductive system or of the SLC5A9-encoded reaction in kidney-pancreatic-colorectal tumors. In conclusion, tumors expressed a metabolic network virtually overlapping the matched normal tissues, raising the possibility that metabolic reprogramming simply reflects cancer cell plasticity to adapt to varying conditions thanks to redundancy and complexity of the underlying metabolic networks. At the same time, the here uncovered exceptions represent a resource to identify selective liabilities of tumor metabolism.
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| 15. |
- Jensen, E. D., et al.
(författare)
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Transcriptional reprogramming in yeast using dCas9 and combinatorial gRNA strategies
- 2017
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Ingår i: Microbial Cell Factories. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1475-2859. ; 16:1, s. 46-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Transcriptional reprogramming is a fundamental process of living cells in order to adapt to environmental and endogenous cues. In order to allow flexible and timely control over gene expression without the interference of native gene expression machinery, a large number of studies have focused on developing synthetic biology tools for orthogonal control of transcription. Most recently, the nuclease-deficient Cas9 (dCas9) has emerged as a flexible tool for controlling activation and repression of target genes, by the simple RNA-guided positioning of dCas9 in the vicinity of the target gene transcription start site. Results: In this study we compared two different systems of dCas9-mediated transcriptional reprogramming, and applied them to genes controlling two biosynthetic pathways for biobased production of isoprenoids and triacylglycerols (TAGs) in baker's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. By testing 101 guide-RNA (gRNA) structures on a total of 14 different yeast promoters, we identified the best-performing combinations based on reporter assays. Though a larger number of gRNA-promoter combinations do not perturb gene expression, some gRNAs support expression perturbations up to similar to threefold. The best-performing gRNAs were used for single and multiplex reprogramming strategies for redirecting flux related to isoprenoid production and optimization of TAG profiles. From these studies, we identified both constitutive and inducible multiplex reprogramming strategies enabling significant changes in isoprenoid production and increases in TAG. Conclusion: Taken together, we show similar performance for a constitutive and an inducible dCas9 approach, and identify multiplex gRNA designs that can significantly perturb isoprenoid production and TAG profiles in yeast without editing the genomic context of the target genes. We also identify a large number of gRNA positions in 14 native yeast target pomoters that do not affect expression, suggesting the need for further optimization of gRNA design tools and dCas9 engineering.\
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| 16. |
- Lau, Allison N., et al.
(författare)
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Dissecting cell-type-specific metabolism in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma
- 2020
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Ingår i: eLife. - 2050-084X. ; 9, s. 1-35
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Tumors are composed of many different cell types including cancer cells, fibroblasts, and immune cells. Dissecting functional metabolic differences between cell types within a mixed population can be challenging due to the rapid turnover of metabolites relative to the time needed to isolate cells. To overcome this challenge, we traced isotope-labeled nutrients into macromolecules that turn over more slowly than metabolites. This approach was used to assess differences between cancer cell and fibroblast metabolism in murine pancreatic cancer organoid-fibroblast co-cultures and tumors. Pancreatic cancer cells exhibited increased pyruvate carboxylation relative to fibroblasts, and this flux depended on both pyruvate carboxylase and malic enzyme 1 activity. Consequently, expression of both enzymes in cancer cells was necessary for organoid and tumor growth, demonstrating that dissecting the metabolism of specific cell populations within heterogeneous systems can identify dependencies that may not be evident from studying isolated cells in culture or bulk tissue.
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| 17. |
- Luengo, Alba, et al.
(författare)
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Increased demand for NAD + relative to ATP drives aerobic glycolysis
- 2021
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Ingår i: Molecular Cell. - : Elsevier BV. - 1097-4164 .- 1097-2765. ; 81:4, s. 691-707.e6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aerobic glycolysis, or preferential fermentation of glucose-derived pyruvate to lactate despite available oxygen, is associated with proliferation across many organisms and conditions. To better understand that association, we examined the metabolic consequence of activating the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex (PDH) to increase pyruvate oxidation at the expense of fermentation. We find that increasing PDH activity impairs cell proliferation by reducing the NAD+/NADH ratio. This change in NAD+/NADH is caused by increased mitochondrial membrane potential that impairs mitochondrial electron transport and NAD+ regeneration. Uncoupling respiration from ATP synthesis or increasing ATP hydrolysis restores NAD+/NADH homeostasis and proliferation even when glucose oxidation is increased. These data suggest that when demand for NAD+ to support oxidation reactions exceeds the rate of ATP turnover in cells, NAD+ regeneration by mitochondrial respiration becomes constrained, promoting fermentation, despite available oxygen. This argues that cells engage in aerobic glycolysis when the demand for NAD+ is in excess of the demand for ATP. Aerobic glycolysis is associated with proliferation in many biological contexts, yet what drives this phenotype has not been fully explained. Luengo et al. show that cells engage in aerobic glycolysis when the demand for NAD+ exceeds the demand for ATP, which leads to impaired NAD+ regeneration by mitochondrial respiration.
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| 18. |
- Riva, B., et al.
(författare)
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Molecular recognition in naphthoquinone derivatives - G-quadruplex complexes by NMR
- 2015
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Ingår i: Biochimica et Biophysica Acta - General Subjects. - : Elsevier BV. - 1872-8006 .- 0304-4165. ; 1850:4, s. 673-680
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: G-quadruplexes have become important drug-design targets for the treatment of various human disorders such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Recently, G-quadruplex structures have been visualized in the DNA of human cells and appeared to be dynamically sensitive to the cell cycle and stabilized by small molecule ligands. A small library of isoxazolo naphthoquinones (1a-h), which exhibited a strong antiproliferafive activity on different cancer cell lines, was studied as potential ligands of G-quadruplex DNA. Methods: The DNA binding properties of a series of the selected compounds have been analyzed by fluorescence assays. NMR/modeling studies were performed to describe the complexes between G-quadruplex DNA sequences and two selected compounds 1a and 1b. Results: 1a and 1b in the presence of G-quadruplexes, d(T(2)AG(3)T)(4), d(TAG(3)T(2)A)(4) and d(T(2)G(3)T(2))(4), showed good ability of intercalation and the formation of complexes with 2:1 stoichiometry. 1a showed an important interaction with the sequence Pu22 belonging to the promoter of oncogenes c-myc. Conclusions: The ligands directly interact with the external G-tetrads of the G-quadruplexes, without alterations in the structure of the G-quadruplex core. The role of the adenine moieties over the G-tetrads in the stabilization of the complexes was discussed. General significance: The results obtained suggested that the strong antiproliferative activity of isoxazolo naphthoquinones is not due to the Hsp90 inhibition, but mainly to the interaction at the level of telomeres and/or at the level of gene promoter. These findings can be used as a basis for the rational drug design of new anticancer agents.
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| 19. |
- Robinson, Jonathan, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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An atlas of human metabolism
- 2020
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Ingår i: Science Signaling. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 1945-0877 .- 1937-9145. ; 13:624
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Genome-scale metabolic models (GEMs) are valuable tools to study metabolism and provide a scaffold for the integrative analysis of omics data. Researchers have developed increasingly comprehensive human GEMs, but the disconnect among different model sources and versions impedes further progress. We therefore integrated and extensively curated the most recent human metabolic models to construct a consensus GEM, Human1. We demonstrated the versatility of Human1 through the generation and analysis of cell- and tissue-specific models using transcriptomic, proteomic, and kinetic data. We also present an accompanying web portal, Metabolic Atlas (https://www.metabolicatlas.org/), which facilitates further exploration and visualization of Human1 content. Human1 was created using a version-controlled, open-source model development framework to enable community-driven curation and refinement. This framework allows Human1 to be an evolving shared resource for future studies of human health and disease.
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| 20. |
- Smith, Cory J., et al.
(författare)
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Enabling large-scale genome editing at repetitive elements by reducing DNA nicking
- 2020
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Ingår i: Nucleic Acids Research. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0305-1048 .- 1362-4962. ; 48:9, s. 5183-5195
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- To extend the frontier of genome editing and enable editing of repetitive elements of mammalian genomes, we made use of a set of dead-Cas9 base editor (dBE) variants that allow editing at tens of thousands of loci per cell by overcoming the cell death associated with DNA double-strand breaks and single-strand breaks. We used a set of gRNAs targeting repetitive elements-ranging in target copy number from about 32 to 161 000 per cell. dBEs enabled survival after large-scale base editing, allowing targeted mutations at up to ∼13 200 and ∼12 200 loci in 293T and human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs), respectively, three orders of magnitude greater than previously recorded. These dBEs can overcome current on-target mutation and toxicity barriers that prevent cell survival after large-scale genome engineering.
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| 21. |
- Tippmann, Stefan, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Effects of acetoacetyl-CoA synthase expression on production of farnesene in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1367-5435 .- 1476-5535. ; 44:6, s. 911-922
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Efficient production of sesquiterpenes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae requires a high flux through the mevalonate pathway. To achieve this, the supply of acetyl-CoA plays a crucial role, partially because nine moles of acetyl-CoA are necessary to produce one mole of farnesyl diphosphate, but also to overcome the thermodynamic constraint imposed on the first reaction, in which acetoacetyl-CoA is produced from two moles of acetyl-CoA by acetoacetyl-CoA thiolase. Recently, a novel acetoacetyl-CoA synthase (nphT7) has been identified from Streptomyces sp. strain CL190, which catalyzes the irreversible condensation of malonyl-CoA and acetyl-CoA to acetoacetyl-CoA and, therefore, represents a potential target to increase the flux through the mevalonate pathway. This study investigates the effect of acetoacetyl-CoA synthase on growth as well as the production of farnesene and compares different homologs regarding their efficiency. While plasmid-based expression of nphT7 did not improve final farnesene titers, the construction of an alternative pathway, which exclusively relies on the malonyl-CoA bypass, was detrimental for growth and farnesene production. The presented results indicate that the overall functionality of the bypass was limited by the efficiency of acetoacetyl-CoA synthase (nphT7). Besides modulation of the expression level, which could be used as a means to partially restore the phenotype, nphT7 from Streptomyces glaucescens showed clearly higher efficiency compared to Streptomyces sp. strain CL190. © 2017, The Author(s).
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