Biomedical engineers at Duke University have demonstrated a new synthetic approach that turbocharges bacteria into producing more of a specific protein, even proteins that would normally destroy them, such as antibiotics.
The technique directs bacteria to produce synthetic disordered proteins that bunch together to form compartments called biological condensates. When these compartments trap mRNA carrying instructions for specific proteins together with the machinery needed to implement them, they can greatly enhance the rate of protein production.
The technique could be a boon to industries that use bacteria to produce a wide range of products such as pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals and biofuels.
The results appeared online February 10 in the…