Elsevier

Current Opinion in Biotechnology

Volume 46, August 2017, Pages 120-125
Current Opinion in Biotechnology

High-throughput system-wide engineering and screening for microbial biotechnology

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copbio.2017.02.011Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • MAGE and CRISPR/Cas systems are increasingly used for large-scale genome engineering.

  • Population based omics tools are optimized for higher throughputs but lack single cell resolution.

  • Nanoliter-scale capsule or droplet reactors can be used for high-throughput single cell screening.

  • Microchips allow ultra-high throughput picoliter-scale single cell phenotyping.

Genetic engineering and screening of large number of cells or populations is a crucial bottleneck in today’s systems biology and applied (micro)biology. Instead of using standard methods in bottles, flasks or 96-well plates, scientists are increasingly relying on high-throughput strategies that miniaturize their experiments to the nanoliter and picoliter scale and the single-cell level. In this review, we summarize different high-throughput system-wide genome engineering and screening strategies for microbes. More specifically, we will emphasize the use of multiplex automated genome evolution (MAGE) and CRISPR/Cas systems for high-throughput genome engineering and the application of (lab-on-chip) nanoreactors for high-throughput single-cell or population screening.

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These authors contributed equally to the work.