Consortium Plant Engineering Biology research

How synthetic biology can help bioremediation: Review article about the current achievements and limitations in advancements of xenobiotic clean-up. 

Standards for plant synthetic biology, a common syntax for exchange of DNA parts: Paper defining a Type IIS genetic syntax which employs principles of part reusability and standardisation. This allowed production and exchange of standard parts for plants, enabling construction of transcriptional units. 

Tuning Plant Promoters Using a Simple Split Luciferase Method to Assess Transcription Factor DNA Interactions: This paper describes a luminescence-based microplate assay to compare interactions of transcription factors with short DNA probes. This data was then used to design synthetic plant promoters with varying response to a single transcription factor.

A Framework for Engineering Stress Resilient Plants Using Genetic Feedback Control and Regulatory Network Rewiring: Plant pathogens often target plant defence responses and can manipulate transcriptional reprogramming. This paper uses network interference and system identification techniques to build a model of an Arabidopsis defence subnetwork and predict synthetic controllers that could be used to engineer disease resistance. 

Bioengineering a plant NLR immune receptor with a robust binding interface toward a conserved fungal pathogen effector: Paper showing engineered rice nucleotide-binding, leucine-rich repeat (NLR) immune receptor Pik-1. Re-design of this NLR enabled it to respond to a conserved family of effectors from the fungal pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae as a strategy for engineering disease resistance in plants. 

Furthering genome design using models and algorithms: A review of progress and future directions in in silico genome design and engineering 

In vivo gibberellin gradients visualized in rapidly elongating tissues: This paper highlights development of a sensor to detect nanomolar levels of bioactive gibberellins (GAs), plant growth regulators. This sensor enables in planta reporting of GAs at the cellular level, facilitating a much greater understanding of GA dynamics. 

Controlling In Planta Gold Nanoparticle Synthesis and Size for Catalysis: Plants were found to naturally produce gold nanoparticles when fed Au deposit. In vitro studies in this paper demonstrated ways to control the size and shape of nanoparticles formed in Arabidopsis for optimisation of catalyst capabilities. 

Reconstitution of monoterpene indole alkaloid biosynthesis in genome engineered Nicotiana benthamiana: Paper reconstituting the biosynthetic pathway for strictosidine, this is an intermediate for all monoterpene indole alkaloids which are medicinally important plant natural products. 

Photosynthesis and crop productivity are enhanced by glucose-functionalised carbon dots:  Paper demonstrating improved photosynthesis and crop production with uptake of carbon-based nanoparticles. They show glucose functionalisation enhances nanoparticle uptake, photoprotection, and pigment production in Triticum aestivum.

Pyrenoid-based CO2-concentrating mechanisms across diverse lineages: convergent features and their applications for engineering: A review on our understanding of pyrenoid-based carbon concentrating mechanisms and how this could be used to construct such mechanisms in vascular plants to enhance photosynthesis. 

Characteristics of the C4 bundle sheath emerge in C3 rice after editing a plasma membrane proton ATPase: Knocking out a plasma membrane H+-ATPase, expressed in bundle sheath cells, increases bundle sheath cell number and chloroplast content providing a simple tool for C4 engineering.