PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Salva Duran-Nebreda
AU  - Jordi Pla
AU  - Blai Vidiella
AU  - Jordi Piñero
AU  - Nuria Conde
AU  - Ricard Solé
TI  - Synthetic Turing patterns in engineered microbial consortia
AID  - 10.1101/2020.06.15.153205
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.06.15.153205
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/06/15/2020.06.15.153205.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/06/15/2020.06.15.153205.full
AB  - Multicellular entities are characterized by exquisite spatial patterns, intimately related to the functions they perform. Oftentimes these patterns emerge as periodic structures with a well-defined characteristic scale. A candidate mechanism to explain their origins was early introduced by Alan Turing through the interaction and diffusion of two so called morphogens. Unfortunately, most available evidence for Turing patterns in biology is usually obscured by the tangled nature of regulatory phenomena, making difficult to validate Turing’s proposal in developmental processes. Here we follow a different approach, by designing synthetic genetic circuits in engineered E. coli strains that implement the essential activator-inhibitor motif (AIM) using a two-cell consortium. The two diffusible compartments are one cell type (activator, small-diffusion component) and a small signal molecule (a homoserine lactone, acting as the fast-diffusing inhibitor). Using both experimental results, we show that the AIM is capable of generating diffusion-induced instabilities leading to regular spatial patterns. The artificial construction taken here can help validate developmental theories and identify universal properties underpinning biological pattern formation. The implications of the work for the area of synthetic developmental biology are outlined.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.