Synthetic Biology at the Hand of Cell-Free Systems

International audienceCell-free systems are emerging as membraneless transcriptional and translational tools to study biology and for prototyping, characterization, and engineering novel biological systems. Cell-free systems allow in vitro transcription and translation using the cellular machinery prepared from a variety of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. These non-GMO tools enable rapid and high-throughput characterization by their rapid gene expression, simple building of large combinatorial libraries, easier cloning, lower noise, less susceptibility to toxicity, and high tunability. In this chapter, different types of cell-free systems, different techniques to obtain them, and their applications in synthetic biology and bioengineering are presented