PROJECT OVERVIEW

Transcription activator-like effectors (TALEs) are proteins secreted by the bacterial pathogen Xanthomonas that contain sequence specific DNA binding domains and can act as transcriptional repressors or activators (Mahfouz et al 2012).The DNA binding domains are sequence specific due to consecutive protein repeats, the composition of each which corresponds to a certain base preference (Meckler et al 2013). TAL repressors can therefore be engineered to bind to any DNA sequence of interest, following now well-understood rules for TAL-DNA binding (Boch J et al 2009, Moscou et al 2009). TALEs are thus a powerful and modular tool for the control of gene expression in genetic circuits. Current efforts to quantify and predict TALE binding affinities and functionalities are being made in order to create libraries of TALE systems that will serve to streamline research and the development of genetic devices (Meckler et al 2013). We hope to utilize TALEs in a more tunable context with the use of riboswitches and inducible promoters.