Synthetic Biology Journal ›› 2023, Vol. 4 ›› Issue (2): 283-300.DOI: 10.12211/2096-8280.2022-070

• Invited Review • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Merging the frontiers: synthetic biology for advanced bacteriophage design

CHEN Qingli, TONG Yigang   

  1. College of Life Science and Technology,Beijing University of Chemical Technology,Beijing 100029,China
  • Received:2022-12-06 Revised:2022-12-30 Online:2023-04-27 Published:2023-04-30
  • Contact: TONG Yigang

工程噬菌体的合成生物学“智造”

陈青黎, 童贻刚   

  1. 北京化工大学生命科学与技术学院 北京 100029
  • 通讯作者: 童贻刚
  • 作者简介:陈青黎(2000—),女,硕士研究生。研究方向为合成生物学改造工程噬菌体。E-mail:ql.chen@buct.edu.cn
    童贻刚(1966—),男,研究员,博士生导师。研究方向为噬菌体学、微生物学、高通量测序、生物信息学研究、合成生物学等。E-mail:tongyigang@mail.buct.edu.cn
  • 基金资助:
    国家自然科学基金(32001834);国家重点研发计划(2018Y FA 0903000);军事生物安全研究计划(20SWAQX27)

Abstract:

Bacteriophages (phages), natural viruses known for infecting and killing bacteria, are the most diverse and abundant organisms on Earth. Within the past 100 years of research on phages, breakthroughs in genetics, molecular biology, and synthetic biology have been successfully achieved. The fascinating scientific history of phage therapy has been repeatedly reported, as drug-resistant bacteria are becoming increasingly prevalent. Although phages outnumber other species combined in nature (1031 in total), only a small fraction of them have been successfully exploited for fighting infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria. Therefore, there is an urgent need for implementing the motto of synthetic biology, "build to learn, build to use", and also using methods such as high-throughput sequencing and precise genome editing to create enhanced variants with unique features, improving efficacy and programmability for phage therapy. In the review, we discuss recent technological advances in phage genome engineering approaches and the potential applications of synthetic biology to engineer phages, such as modifying the host range of phages for practical needs, mining the extensive resources of phages in nature with the help of macro genomes, combining multi-omics technologies to reveal molecular mechanisms underlying phage-host interactions, regulating intestinal phages to maintain intestinal homeostasis for human health, and using big data and artificial intelligence to guide rational phage design. Synthetic biology is driving a paradigm shift in traditional experimental research by combining "Design-Build-Test-Learn (DBTL) cycles" to rational design for phages, making synthetically designed phages promising for both top-down system optimization and bottom-up life-form reconstruction.

Key words: phage, synthetic biology, engineered phage, reprogramming genome, rational design, phage therapy

摘要:

关键词: 噬菌体, 合成生物学, 工程噬菌体, 可编程基因组, 理性设计, 噬菌体治疗

CLC Number: