New engineered phenolic biosensors based on the AraC regulatory protein

Customized transcription factors that control gene expression in response to small molecules can act as endogenous molecular biosensors and are valuable tools for synthetic biology. We previously engineered the Escherichia coli regulatory protein AraC to respond to non-native inducers such as D-arabinose and triacetic acid lactone. Those prior studies involved the construction and screening of individual 4- or 5-site saturation mutagenesis...