The aim of our project is to build a synthetic organelle based on phase separation as a multifunctional platform. Based on the principle of multivalence and interaction, we fused interactional modules into homo-oligomeric tags (HOtags) to form granules in S. cerevisiae.
We have built spontaneous and induced synthetic organelles by specific interaction modules, so that we can control the formation process by different ways for demands in biological engineering. Then we characterized the kinetics and properties of synthetic organelles theoretically and experimentally. These results confirm the potential of synthetic organelles in synthetic biology.
It inspired us to propose some specific applications of our synthetic organelles, including organization hub, sensor, and metabolism regulator. We have verified the feasibility of them by loading GFP-nanobody module, NAD+ sensor module and carotene production module to the whole system.
We believe that our work has reached the medal requirements of demonstration as we have confirmed that our synthetic organelles can be formed in vivo and deliver a range of functions both for engineering and research due to their amazing properties. The concrete demonstration of the whole platform is shown below. You can see more details of experiments and modeling in our Data Page and Modeling