Potential applications of the Escherichia coli heat shock response in synthetic biology

Abstract

The Escherichia coli heat shock response (HSR) is a complex mechanism triggered by heat shock and by a variety of other growth-impairing stresses. We explore here the potential use of the E. coli HSR mechanism in synthetic biology approaches. Several components of the regulatory mechanism (such as heat shock promoters, proteins, and RNA thermosensors) can be extremely valuable in the creation of a toolbox of well-characterized biological parts to construct biosensors or microbial cell factories with applications in the environment, industry, or healthcare. In the future, these systems can be used for instance to detect a pollutant in water, to regulate and optimize the production of a compound with industrial relevance, or to administer a therapeutic agent in vivo.This study was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit and COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684) and under the scope of the Project RECI/BBB-EBI/0179/2012 (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027462). The authors also acknowledge financial support from BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020–Programa Operacional Regional do Norte, and a Postdoctoral grant (UMINHO/BPD/37/2015) to J.L.R. funded by the FCT.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio