Available methods for assembling expression cassettes for synthetic biology

Appl Microbiol Biotechnol. 2012 Mar;93(5):1853-63. doi: 10.1007/s00253-012-3920-8. Epub 2012 Feb 7.

Abstract

Studies in the structural biology of the multicomponent protein complex, metabolic engineering, and synthetic biology frequently rely on the efficient over-expression of these subunits or enzymes in the same cell. As a first step, constructing the multiple expression cassettes will be a complicated and time-consuming job if the classic and conventional digestion and ligation based cloning method is used. Some more efficient methods have been developed, including (1) the employment of a multiple compatible plasmid expression system, (2) the rare-cutter-based design of vectors, (3) in vitro recombination (sequence and ligation independent cloning, the isothermally enzymatic assembly of DNA molecules in a single reaction), and (4) in vivo recombination using recombination-efficient yeast (in vivo assembly of overlapping fragments, reiterative recombination for the chromosome integration of foreign expression cassettes). In this review, we systematically introduce these available methods.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Gene Expression*
  • Genetic Engineering / methods*
  • Genetic Vectors
  • Genetics, Microbial / methods*
  • Mutagenesis, Insertional
  • Plasmids
  • Recombination, Genetic
  • Synthetic Biology / methods*
  • Yeasts / genetics