Dissemin is shutting down on January 1st, 2025

Published in

Nature Research, Nature Communications, 1(14), 2023

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-42358-4

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A robust yeast biocontainment system with two-layered regulation switch dependent on unnatural amino acid

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

AbstractSynthetic auxotrophy in which cell viability depends on the presence of an unnatural amino acid (unAA) provides a powerful strategy to restrict unwanted propagation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in open environments and potentially prevent industrial espionage. Here, we describe a generic approach for robust biocontainment of budding yeast dependent on unAA. By understanding escape mechanisms, we specifically optimize our strategies by introducing designed “immunity” to the generation of amber-suppressor tRNAs and developing the transcriptional- and translational-based biocontainment switch. We further develop a fitness-oriented screening method to easily obtain multiplex safeguard strains that exhibit robust growth and undetectable escape frequency (<~10−9) on solid media for 14 days. Finally, we show that employing our multiplex safeguard system could restrict the proliferation of strains of interest in a real fermentation scenario, highlighting the great potential of our yeast biocontainment strategy to protect the industrial proprietary strains.