Jim HASELOFF - Synthetic Biology and engineering multicellular systems
Channel: Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHÉS)
Date: 2015-12-21

Synthetic Biology is an emerging field that employs engineering principles for constructing genetic  systems.  It  is  providing  a  conceptual  and  practical  framework  for  the  systematic 
engineering of gene expression and behaviour in microbes, but also shows great potential for the engineering of multicellular systems. We have used populations of Escherichia coli cells,  which  exhibit  little  or  no  intrinsic  coordination  of  growth,  as  a  model  system  to study  physical  interactions  in  multicellular  systems.  This  system  effectively  isolates  the effects  of  cell  shape,  growth,  and  division  on  spatial  self-organization.  Even  these  very simple systems show emergent properties, and give rise to striking fractal patterns. Large-scale  cellular  biophysical  models  demonstrate that  local  instabilities  are  responsible  for 
generating the observed self-organising properties of the system, and confirm the need for multi-scale  physico-genetic  models  of  cell  growth  for  understanding  and  engineering  multicellul ar systems. We are now exploring a similar approach using a simple plant system, the  liverwort  Marchantia  polymorpha.  Marchantia  is  characterised  by  morphological simplicity,   matched   by   simple   underlying   genome   structure.   Its   ease   of   culture, 
transformation  and  analysis  make  it an  ideal  system  for  plant  development  and  synthetic biology.  We  have  developed  a  battery  of  computational,  imaging  and  genetic  tools  to 
allow  clear  visualisation  of  individual  cells  inside  living  plant  tissues,  and  are  developing  a common  syntax  for  plant
DNA  parts  that  can  be  used  to  reprogram  metabolism  and 
development.