Evolving together · Directed co-evolution via engineered cell-to-cell communication

Directed co-evolution via engineered cell-to-cell communication

Evolving Together aims to tackle one of the current challenges in biotechnology which consists of the co-evolution of two target molecules and to study DNA repair. Directed evolution is a method in protein engineering that mimics the Darwinian evolution in the lab. The importance of this technique was recognized with the Nobel price in Chemistry in 2018, and has been used to evolve hundres of proteins with different applications, and has revolutionized very different fields from neuroscience, to chemical catalysis, with special relevance in main biotechnological processes. In directed evolution, the genetic variability is induced or created artificially, and the library is subject to a biochemical assay where the desired physicochemical properties of the enzyme are harnessed for its enrichment from the rest of the pool. This process normally is iterated several times until a bigger percentage of the population displays the desired evolved features. Traditionally, directed evolution targets one single protein at a time. In evolving together, we plan to co-evolve simultaneous two different proteins. To showcase this new approach, we have selected a low-affinity antigen-antibody pair, which is going to be displayed at the surface of the yeast strain Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Sc), also known as Baker’s yeast. The development of a platform for the co-evolution of two different proteins simultaneously and a reporter system to study DNA repair in yeast will be highly desirable for many reasons. The development of this platform shed some light on other more biologically relevant processes such as cellular communication and differentiation. Moreover, antibody engineering and maturation have been the focus of many biotechnological companies, and the development of this platform will have immediate applications. Finally, the design of a genetic system that enables to visualize in a quantitive manner the different DNA-repair mechanisms will be ideal to establish new screening assays for drugs that affect the DNA repair machinery. This area of research has been propelled in the last years by the increase in research on genome engineering and editing.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз